Fungi are an indispensable part of your microbiome, keeping the body’s host of microorganisms healthy as part of a system of checks and balances. But when you’re hit by an infection, fungi can be thrown out of equilibrium with other organisms inside you, leading to a more severe infection and …
Read More »Nike’s Layoffs Prove the Olympics Can’t Solve Its Midlife Crisis
Amid much hoopla at the Palais Brongniart—the former home of the Paris stock exchange—sports giant Nike launched an exhaustive lineup of footwear and apparel innovation ahead of the Paris Summer Olympic games. During the three-day gala event, dubbed Nike On Air, the company debuted new kits for almost every sport. …
Read More »The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision
Brian Bussard has 25 tiny chips in his brain. They were installed in February 2022 as part of a study testing a wireless device designed to produce rudimentary vision in blind people. Bussard is the first participant. Bussard, who’s 56, lost vision in his left eye at age 17 after …
Read More »Bird Flu Is Spreading in Alarming New Ways
Last Friday, a health alert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pinged its way across the inboxes of clinicians and state health departments all over the US. The message described how a dairy farm worker in Texas had contracted H5N1, the highly infectious strain of avian influenza, or …
Read More »This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born
God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born with a severe intellectual disability. Or go blind. Or become …
Read More »‘In 24 Hours, You’ll Have Your Pills’: American Women Are Traveling to Mexico for Abortions
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español, and has been translated from Spanish. At 6 pm, after a long day at work and with her children out of the house, Tania (not her real name) takes four pills and waits for them to melt under her tongue. Six hours …
Read More »This Bag of Cells Could Grow New Livers Inside of People
For the first time, scientists are attempting to grow a new, miniature liver inside of a person. It sounds like science fiction; in fact, the idea was the plot of a Grey’s Anatomy episode that aired in 2018. Now, biotech company LyGenesis is trying to turn the concept into reality. …
Read More »Screen Time for Kids Is Fine! Unless It's Not
The anti-smartphone movement is having a moment. On March 25, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning children under 14 from social media platforms. In February, the UK government backed tighter guidance to keep children from using their smartphones at school. In the past year, grassroots organizations like Smartphone …
Read More »The Next Generation of Cancer Drugs Will Be Made in Space
Immunotherapy is one of the most promising new ways to fight cancer, but it takes forever. It works by mimicking or invoking the body’s own immune defenses to weed out and attack cancer cells. But the drugs that do this are typically administered intravenously—fed into the blood using needles, in …
Read More »The Real Reason Some Abortion Pill Patients Go to the ER
Today the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a consequential case that threatens to curb access to medication abortion across the country. A central issue in the case is the safety of the drug mifepristone, the first in a two-pill regimen used to induce an abortion. …
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