Sarah Zhang
The Fertility Doctor’s Secret
Donald Cline must have thought no one would ever know. Then DNA testing came along.
-
![]()
Courtesy of Holly Becker / The Atlantic A Woman’s AncestryDNA Test Revealed a Medical Secret
As a cancer patient, she had received cord-blood cells from an anonymous donor. The DNA from those cells led her to him.
-
![]()
Africa Studio / besttv / Shutterstock / Katie ... A Human Liver Can Be Cooled to –4 Degrees Celsius and Survive
A new technique can preserve the organ outside the human body for at least 27 hours.
-
![]()
Vasant Shinde A Burst of Clues to South Asians’ Genetic Ancestry
A tiny ear bone from more than 4,000 years ago is shaping the story of migration and heritage in India.
-
![]()
Chip Simons / Getty The Patient Who Finally Knows Why Her UTIs Won’t Go Away
Urinary-tract infections were once easy to cure. Then they started becoming resistant to antibiotics.
-
![]()
Courtesy of L. England A Single Male Cat’s Reign of Terror
In Australia, one cat seems to have destroyed an entire bird sanctuary.
-
![]()
Courtesy of the Lawrence County Coroner's Office / ... She Was Found Strangled in a Well, and Now She Has a Name
Using DNA, genealogists finally confirmed the identity of the “Belle in the Well,” found 38 years ago.
-
![]()
Jana Bulantová / Creative Commons What Tick Saliva Does to the Human Body
Ticks use their saliva to create a “lake of blood” inside their hosts.
-
![]()
Victoria Neer / Getty The Quietly Changing Consensus on Neutering Dogs
A growing body of research has documented the health risks of getting certain breeds fixed early—so why aren’t shelters changing their policies?
-
![]()
Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane IVF Mix-Ups Have Broken the Definition of Parenthood
When a New York woman gave birth to twins after IVF, neither baby was related to her, or to each other.
-
![]()
National Park Service / Associated Press A Surprising Idea About the Risks of Extinction
The tiny population of wolves on Isle Royale descended from a much larger group. What if that helped doom them?
-
![]()
Joerg Sarbach / AP The Hospital Is Too Damn Loud
The average hospitalized patient endures 350 alarms each day.
-
![]()
Lois S. Wiggs / CDC Should Human Feces Be Regulated Like a Drug?
A fecal-transplant patient has unexpectedly died just as the FDA is deciding the future of the unconventional procedure.
-
![]()
bookzv / Shutterstock The Pediatrician’s Most Awkward Task
Can doctors teach people how to parent?
-
![]()
Photos courtesy of Tim Gullicksen / Paul Spella ... The Man With 17 Kids (And Counting)
After becoming a sperm donor, Tim Gullicksen wanted to get to know his donor kids. Now he invites them all out to a lake in California every summer.
-
![]()
John Kolesidis / Reuters A Medieval Grape Is Still Used to Make Wine
It’s been genetically unchanged for at least 900 years.
-
![]()
Courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute We Were Missing Most of the Plastic in the Ocean
The highest levels of microplastics are found more than 650 feet below the surface.
-
![]()
Kin Cheung / AP A Mutation That Resists HIV Has Other Harmful Consequences
He Jiankui chose a famous mutation to edit into human embryos. Scientists are still trying to figure out everything it does.
-
![]()
Mizumoto / Proceedings of the Royal Society B An Incredible Fossil Contains a Whole School of 259 Fish
How did they all die at once?
-
![]()
Lipskiy / Mad Dog / Shutterstock / The ... Why Anti-vax Doctors Are Ordering 23andMe Tests
Naturopaths have long been obsessed with a gene called MTHFR. Now vaccine skeptics are testing for it too.
-
![]()
N. D. Mitrofanov / Natural Nidality of Transmissible ... Soviets Tried So, So Hard to Eliminate the Plague
“Literally tens of thousands of people were employed to just spoon poison into the burrows.”
