Category: 4. Health

School’s out. Teens are bored. And the siren call of social media and video games beckons.  

Parents and caregivers bungling through new summer routines, or lack thereof, have long sought to balance the time kids spend glued to screens with time spent outdoors. Many worry about the increasing evidence linking teen screen use to skyrocketing mental health problems.

But finding that balance might not be key to warding off teen anxiety, depression, aggression and suicidal…

Bats are beneficial to our ecosystems and economy but, as habitat destruction and environmental stressors put them in closer proximity to humans, disease risks can emerge. The research, published in Nature Communications on July 17, offers an approach to anticipating the emergence of coronaviruses. It found young bats are infected more frequently and could be a key…

The United States is facing a pivotal moment in efforts to keep one of the world’s most contagious diseases at bay. Measles cases have reached a 33-year high just halfway through 2025. This grim milestone has public health experts worried that unless vaccination rates rise, the virus could cause more regular outbreaks every year.

As of July 15, a total of 1,309 people had been diagnosed with measles, the highest number since the disease largely stopped circulating in the…

In 2012, Phyllis Barkman Ferrell experienced a profound irony. The longtime veteran of Eli Lilly was leading a team preparing to launch a groundbreaking molecule to treat Alzheimer’s when her own father was diagnosed with the disease.

He became one of approximately 500,000 people…

The World Obesity Federation expects more than half the global population to become overweight or obese by 2035. However, treatment strategies such as lifestyle change,…

A newly published study in Nature Partner Journals’ Aging demonstrates that psilocin, a byproduct of consuming psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, extended the cellular lifespan of human skin and lung cells by more than 50%.

In parallel,…

For most of human history, the mind was a mystery box. Behavior emerged, and we simply accepted it—strange, brilliant, troubled, gifted. But today, we peer inside that box. We map genes. We track brain development. And sometimes, what we find upends everything we thought we knew.

Take autism. Long framed as a single condition, a spectrum of traits stretching from mild to…

The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) just inaugurated its first medical school class of 48 students, commemorated by a prestigious white coat ceremony last week. The school was founded by philanthropist billionaire Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart family and worth nearly $100 billion.

The school was opened with a singular focus in mind: train students to practice medicine with an eye to holistic care….

In a 2022 survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, more than one-third of respondents reported that on most days, they feel “completely overwhelmed” by stress. At the same time, a growing body of research is documenting the negative health consequences of higher stress levels, which include increased rates of cancer, heart disease, autoimmune conditions and even dementia.

Assuming people’s daily lives are unlikely to get less stressful anytime soon, simple and effective ways to mitigate…