October 7, 2024
(New York Times) – After I spent more than 50 years chasing and fighting viruses, one fought back and nearly took me down. I speak of the West Nile virus, delivered by the deadliest animal on the planet: the mosquito. … Read More
August 21, 2024
(Axios) – Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz disclosed new details about the family’s fertility story this week, clarifying that they did not use in-vitro fertilization, as previous comments had implied. Why it matters: As both governor and the vice presidential … Read More
August 9, 2024
(New York Times) – Dr. J. Robin Warren, the Australian pathologist who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering that most stomach ulcers were caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori — and not, as had been widely believed, stress, alcohol or … Read More
August 9, 2024
(Popular Mechanics via MSN) – An American computer scientist-turned-futurist, Kurzweil has long believed that humanity is headed toward what’s known as “the singularity,” when man and machine merge. In 1999, Kurzweil theorized that artificial general intelligence would be achieved once … Read More
August 5, 2024
(The Guardian) – Sam Altman’s ChatGPT promises to transform the global economy. But it also poses an enormous threat. Here, a scientist who appeared with Altman before the US Senate on AI safety flags up the danger in AI – … Read More
July 16, 2024
(MedPage Today) – Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun … Read More
July 12, 2024
(BBC) – Members of an Australian religious group have gone on trial accused of killing an eight-year-old diabetic girl by denying her medical care and offering prayer instead. Elizabeth Struhs was found dead at a home in Toowoomba – about … Read More
July 9, 2024
(Christianity Today) – Francis Collins, the former longtime head of the National Institutes of Health and founder of BioLogos, has seen deaths in his work as a physician and researcher. But some of those have been personal: He watched his … Read More
July 9, 2024
(GEN) – Porteus is a scientific co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics, the company that launched the exa-cel CRISPR trial that culminated in the approval of Casgevy in December 2023. With the latest companies he has co-founded—first Graphite Bio, now Kamau Therapeutics— … Read More
June 13, 2024
(Wired) – Ray Kurzweil rejects death. The 76-year-old scientist and engineer has spent much of his time on earth arguing that humans can not only take advantage of yet-to-be-invented medical advances to live longer, but also ultimately merge with machines, … Read More
May 24, 2024
(Associated Press) – Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most famous work skewered American food and diets and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died. He … Read More
May 21, 2024
(New York Times) – He also identified the virus, which can cause infants to be born with severe physical and mental impairments as well as causing miscarriages and stillbirths. Dr. Paul D. Parkman, whose research was instrumental in identifying the … Read More
April 29, 2024
(NPR) – Now at 74, Collins’ life looks very different. After helping the world navigate a health crisis, his attention has shifted to battling his own. “It’s one thing to be imagining what somebody is experiencing as you’re giving them … Read More
April 29, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A lifelong eager and early adopter, Mollick immersed himself in the technology. On social media, he shared discoveries made while experimenting with ChatGPT, including findings from his M.B.A. students at Wharton, who use it in his … Read More
April 15, 2024
(Associated Press) – Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, according to funeral home officials. They were 62. (Read More)
April 15, 2024
(NPR) – NPR’s Scott Detrow spoke with the former director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, about his recent prostate cancer diagnosis. (Read More)
March 22, 2024
(Associated Press) – Kate, the Princess of Wales, has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, she said Friday in a stunning announcement that follows weeks of speculation about her health and whereabouts. Her condition was disclosed in a video message recorded … Read More
March 21, 2024
(New York Times) – Before he died last year, Roland Griffiths was arguably the world’s most famous psychedelics researcher. Since 2006, his work has suggested that psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, can induce mystical experiences, and that those experiences, in … Read More
March 21, 2024
(Wired) – Eight names are listed as authors on “Attention Is All You Need,” a scientific paper written in the spring of 2017. They were all Google researchers, though by then one had left the company. When the most tenured … Read More
March 14, 2024
(CBS News) – Paul Alexander, a North Texas man who lived in an iron lung for most of his life, has died. According to his obituary, he died on March 11. He was 78. To the world, Dallas native Paul … Read More
March 6, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Elizabeth Carr has always been a living symbol of fertility technology’s possibilities. Now she is the face of its challenges. Carr, 42 years old, is the first baby born by in vitro fertilization in the U.S. … Read More
February 29, 2024
(New York Times) – Guy Alexandre, a Belgian transplant surgeon who in the 1960s risked professional censure by removing kidneys from brain-dead patients whose hearts were still beating — a procedure that greatly improved organ viability while challenging the medical … Read More
February 29, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – When Fajgenbaum was diagnosed with Castleman as a third-year medical student, he was so ill that a priest administered the sacrament of anointing the sick. Fajgenbaum studied his own blood samples for clues to a drug … Read More
February 27, 2024
(Aeon) – Good Chemistry takes viewers behind the scenes and beyond the headlines of the CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough. Centred on the work of the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and the US biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who together became the first all-female … Read More
February 26, 2024
(STAT News) – If UCSF is known for birthing the field of fetal surgery, UC Berkeley, located a short drive across the Bay Bridge, is famous in biomedical circles for pioneering CRISPR gene editing, the most powerful DNA-manipulating tool ever … Read More
