How People in the Depression Managed to Laugh
American popular culture flourished in the 1930s, despite the Great Depression. One thing that helped: artists being included in the New Deal.
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?
How America Brought the 1957 Influenza Pandemic to a Halt
Microbiologist Maurice Hilleman saw it coming, so the country made 40 million doses of the vaccine within months.
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.
There’s a Mascot for That? Cute COVID-19 Education
How to get people to stay healthy during a quarantine? Some countries have taken to a new communications strategy, and it's super cute.
Dogs and Cancer
Because we share many of the same cell types with our pets, they develop some of the same cancers. Comparative oncologists study these parallels.
Your Brain Evolved to Hoard Supplies and Shame Others for Doing the Same
Have people gone mad? How can one individual be overfilling their own cart, while shaming others who are doing the same?
How Body Positivity Coexists with Fat Shaming
Retail workers at a plus-size clothing store had to promote the contradictory messages that every body is beautiful and that being fat is bad.
Disease Theory in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man
Shelley's third novel, about the sole survivor of a global plague, draws on the now-outdated miasma theory of disease.
