Once a masculine emblem of construction workers and hikers, Stanley drinkware is now a status symbol for the wellness-oriented internet trend-chaser. The ubiquitous 40-ounce Quencher H2.0 FlowState Tumbler is at the heart of some of the 2020s’ most recognizable woman-dominated and pastel-toned trends, like the “hot girl walk” and TikTok’s …
Read More »There’s a Huge Covid Surge Right Now and Nobody Is Talking About It
Seemingly everyone has come down with at least one bout of illness this winter: sniffles that theoretically pass as “just some bug” if you don’t test for Covid. But there’s a solid chance, with or without a test, that those sniffles were Covid after all. We’re in the midst of …
Read More »Air Pollution Is Ruining Your Skin
In June last year, a series of devastating wildfires tore through the Canadian province of Quebec, sending huge plumes of acrid smoke drifting across North America. Three hundred miles away in Boston, dermatologist Shadi Kourosh noticed something strange. “We had an unusual spike in dermatology visits,” says Kourosh, who is …
Read More »The End of One-Size-Fits-All Health Care
It has been known for decades that the vast majority of human biological differences aren’t between groups, they're from person to person. It’s weird that scientists and doctors still resort to sifting people into huge populations when trying to understand us: ethnicity, race, sex, and gender. 2024 will mark the …
Read More »During Pregnancy, the Placenta Hacks the Immune System to Protect the Fetus
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When you were a child, it seemed like an ingenious plan: Splash hot water on your face and stagger into the kitchen, letting out a moan that could make angels cry. One touch of your flushed forehead would convince your …
Read More »How Your Body Adapts to Extreme Cold
A bitter winter storm is sweeping across the north-east of North America this weekend, and is expected to bring significant snow to New York City for the first time in two years. Low temperatures around freezing are expected to last into next week. If this is making you miserable, it’s …
Read More »A Gel Injected Into the Scrotum Could Be the Next Male Contraceptive
Vasectomies are on the rise, but not all men are ready to commit to a permanent form of birth control. While the surgery can sometimes be reversed, it's expensive and doesn’t always work. What if there was another option? Virginia-based biotech company Contraline is testing a new type of male …
Read More »My Parents’ Dementia Felt Like the End of Joy. Then Came the Robots
When my mom was finally, officially diagnosed with dementia in 2020, her geriatric psychiatrist told me that there was no effective treatment. The best thing to do was to keep her physically, intellectually, and socially engaged every day for the rest of her life. Oh, OK. No biggie. The doc …
Read More »This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner
In 2015, Canan Dağdeviren was working as a postdoc at MIT when she learned that her aunt, Fatma, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Dağdeviren, whose work focused on building flexible devices that could capture biometric data, flew to the Netherlands to be with her relative …
Read More »20 Things That Made the World a Better Place in 2023
It’s been hard recently to think about anything other than the wars and humanitarian crises raging around the world. Climate change has left its mark in what was almost certainly the hottest year in human history—there were unprecedented heat waves, intensified forest fires, torrential rain, and floods like those in …
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