November 16, 2023
(NPR) – In a new book, The Invisible Ache, Vance and psychologist Robin L. Smith (who often goes by Dr. Robin) explore the trauma unique to Black men and boys, and address what they see as an urgent need to … Read More
October 3, 2023
(NPR) – When it comes to biological and medical research, women’s bodies have long been overlooked. Researcher and author Cat Bohannon says there’s a “male norm” in science that prioritizes male bodies over female bodies — in part because males … Read More
July 24, 2023
(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – Writing about Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists requires a few disclosures first. The history of the Bulletin is inseparable from the history of the making of the nuclear bomb, … Read More
June 6, 2023
(Nature) – The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care Hannah Wunsch Greystone Books (2023) The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home the central role of intensive care units (ICUs) in saving the lives of … Read More
April 13, 2023
(Wired) – Two recent debut novels have tapped into the Gothic side of beauty and wellness culture, prime examples of a new literary trend: Goopcore body horror. Both stories follow women enthralled by Svengali-like figures who encourage them to take … Read More
April 7, 2023
(Undark) – This is the focus of Kiper’s “Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain” — not the mind of the patient, but the caregiver. Often, the spouses, children, and loved ones of people … Read More
April 4, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – Burnout now consumes American physicians, who are overworked, nonautonomous and adrift without help. Such is the crisis facing physicians, according to the psychiatrist Wendy Dean and the hand surgeon Simon Talbot, co-founders of Moral Injury of … Read More
March 10, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – Meredith Broussard is unusually well placed to dissect the ongoing hype around AI. She’s a data scientist and associate professor at New York University, and she’s been one of the leading researchers in the field of … Read More
January 27, 2023
(Undark) – In 2011, Ahmed Hamdy, a clinical researcher, sat in a parking lot in Sunnyvale, California. On his mind: a brand-new anti-cancer drug that, true to Silicon Valley parlance, seemed poised to change the world. Only Hamdy had just … Read More
November 18, 2022
(Undark) – In his latest book, the oncologist and acclaimed writer Siddhartha Mukherjee focuses his narrative microscope on the cell, the elementary building block from which complex systems and life itself emerge. It is the coordination of cells that allow … Read More
October 5, 2022
(First Things) – And Aaron Kheriaty’s forthcoming book, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (to be released November 1), is Exhibit A. Every few years a book comes along like Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed or Carl … Read More
September 19, 2022
(Undark) – Now, Maté is once again attempting to shift the conversation, this time about health at large, through a new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture,” which he co-wrote with his son, … Read More
September 14, 2022
(The New Yorker) – When Rachel Aviv was six years old, she stopped eating. Shortly after, she was hospitalized with anorexia. Her doctors were flummoxed. They’d never seen a child so young develop the eating disorder, yet there she was. … Read More
August 2, 2022
(Undark) – James Belich’s new book, “The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe,” shows the depth and longevity of the controversy over the sources and impacts of an era-defining scourge. Belich, an Oxford University … Read More
July 8, 2022
(Undark) – As Bergner, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, emphasizes in his moving narrative, the chief claim contained in that bestseller of yesteryear — that mental illnesses are diseases for which there exist chemical cures — … Read More
June 3, 2022
(Undark) – At first glance, one might assume that Peter Ward’s “The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever” is yet another book promising secrets to regain youth, restore health, and outlive those who lack the knowledge or willpower … Read More
June 2, 2022
(New York Review of Books) – Systematic attacks on hospitals amplify the harm of war and increase suffering. The effects reverberate widely, spreading terror and driving people to flee. This exemplifies the weaponization of health care—the use of people’s need … Read More
May 31, 2022
(Nature) – As a medical student in Pakistan, Haider Warraich loved to go to the gym. One day, while bench pressing, he dropped a 90-kilogram weight on himself. His back injury ended his plans to become a surgeon and almost … Read More
April 21, 2022
(Wired) – Finding a diagnosis for chronic pain is the only way to get one’s sentence cut short. While a diagnosis might help with treatment, to the person in distress it can provide something even more coveted: meaning. And yet … Read More
April 15, 2022
(Undark) – In the mid-1980s, as he was launching his academic career, psychiatrist Thomas Insel decided to research the neural pathways for social attachment. His work ended up documenting the important roles that the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin play in … Read More
March 24, 2022
(Undark) – According to John Abramson, a health care policy lecturer at Harvard Medical School, the sap of this poisoned tree is so-called Big Pharma, the coalition of drug companies that have structured American health care into a money-generating machine. … Read More
March 3, 2022
(The Atlantic) – Even in this context, some people have stood out for their selflessness. In early 2020, being myself deluged with grim headlines and aching for hope, I set out to find some of them and tell their stories. … Read More
March 1, 2022
(NPR) – For over a decade, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Insel headed the National Institute of Mental Health and directed billions of dollars into research on neuroscience and the genetic underpinnings of mental illnesses. “Our efforts were largely to … Read More
February 21, 2022
(Nature) – German historian of culture and science Bernd Brunner, in his book Extreme North, weaves a darker tapestry, layering legends over the science and history of the north to describe a place that is real, remote, inscrutable and cold. … Read More
February 14, 2022
(NPR) – Until the emergence of COVID-19, tuberculosis was the deadliest infectious disease in the world. How did it evolve from a terrible disease to a largely controlled one to the horrific plague it is now? That’s the question that … Read More
