How Doctors Make End-of-Life Choices
Many people facing the end of their life receive treatments that ultimately have no benefit. A team of researchers set out to find out why.
Teaching Pandemics Syllabus
Readings on the history of quarantine, contagious disease, viruses, infections, and epidemics offer important context for the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Study of Human Anatomy and the Corpses of Vienna
For cultural and geographical reasons, the city was a great place to find bodies to dissect. But there was also the matter of one well-connected doctor.
The True Costs of Managing Pandemics
The fear of the next global virus isn't just media indulging in catastrophizing; it's a collective concern for global economic and political health.
The Chemist Whose Work Was Stolen from Her
The Black scientist Alice Ball helped develop a treatment for leprosy in the early twentieth century. But someone else took the credit.
The Vast Influence of Ibn Sina, Pioneer of Medicine
In the 11th century CE, science was rapidly advancing in the Islamic world. The scholar Ibn Sina (Avicenna) synthesized its medical wisdom.
When Ambulances Were Hearses
The federal government pushed the improvement of emergency services from several directions in the 60s and 70s.
Is It Ethical to Grow a Brain in a Petri Dish?
Brain organoids could be the key to understanding brain diseases, which is why we should think carefully about how far we are prepared to take them.
We’re Living in a Post-Antibiotic World
A new CDC report warns: “Stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era—it’s already here.” Contrast that to a 1944 article on the promise of penicillin.
The X-ray Craze of 1896
For many science-obsessed Victorians, X-rays were not just a fun novelty, but a potential miracle cure.