Cytokine Storms: The Cruel Irony of an Immune Response
When bodies fight back against infection, they can overwhelm themselves with their own destructive force.
Can We Protect Against Coronavirus by Rewriting Our Genomes?
Genome recoding could offer new modes of virus resistance, but the technology raises serious ethical concerns.
How to Memorialize a Plague
Vienna's baroque Plague Column, completed in 1693, gave thanks for the survival of a city.
Yvonne Rainer, Postmodern Dance, and You
In the 1960s, a group of artists started experimenting with choreography based on ordinary movement and improvisation. Now your living room is the stage.
Anti-Asian Racism in the 1817 Cholera Pandemic
We should learn from, instead of repeating, the racist assignations of the past.
How Tucson Enforced Its 1918 Mask Requirement
During the influenza pandemic, the Arizona city's police force fined and arrested people for not wearing face masks.
Waffle Houses Mean Way More Than Waffles in Disasters
The restaurant chain and FEMA work together in calamities like tornadoes and hurricanes, for good reason.
COVID-19 Is Hitting Black and Poor Communities the Hardest
The viral pandemic is underscoring fault lines in access to care for those on margins.
Anthony S. Fauci on Pandemic Preparedness
Before he led the effort to contain COVID-19, the nation's top infectious disease expert published several papers about pandemic preparedness. Here are two.
Viral Mutation for the Perplexed
We all know viruses mutate. But how does that happen, and what does it mean for how we can treat diseases caused by viruses?