What Happens When You’re Convinced You Have Bad Genes
DNA tests can have a placebo effect.
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John M Lund / Getty The Torturous Psychology of 10-Minute Tasks
I could get rid of my recycling in minutes. So why do I let it sit there for weeks?
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Heidi de Marco / Kaiser Health News A Doctor Allegedly Whispered to His Patient That She Looked Like a ‘Sexy Librarian’
In California, only a fraction of sexual-harassment complaints filed against doctors lead to any punishment. Did the #MeToo movement miss medicine?
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Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune / Getty The Recurring Dread of a Paralyzing Illness
The 2018 spike in acute flaccid myelitis has peaked, but the quest to understand this debilitating illness continues.
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Evan Vucci / AP Congresswoman, Interrupted
President Trump’s interruptions of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are part of a long tradition of men talking over female colleagues.
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Emojipedia / Katie Martin / The Atlantic This Is Your Brain on Puppies
There’s a scientific reason you want to squeeze a cute animal’s little face.
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Chiara Zarmati Did Free Pens Cause the Opioid Crisis?
What Big Pharma knows about people’s hardwired instinct to reciprocate when given a gift
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Guislain / Internet Archive Showering Has a Dark, Violent History
In the 19th century, cold rinses and days-long baths became a way to treat—and control—psychiatric patients.
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Darryl Dyck / AP The Strongest Evidence Yet for a Highly Controversial Addiction Treatment
When other approaches fail, the most effective way to fight a heroin addiction can be heroin itself.
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Ethan Hil / Spectrum Autism Risk Is Tough to Pin Down During Pregnancy
As the fetal brain develops in the womb, factors ranging from air quality to birth timing could have lasting effects.
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Courtesy of Amina Akhtar The Dog That’s Famous for Not Wanting to Be Eaten by a Coyote
Meet Beanie. Her viral spiky vest is the latest in a long line of protective gear for pets.
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Georg Wieselthaler / The New England Journal of ... Doctors Aren’t Sure How This Even Came Out of a Patient
Somehow, a man coughed up an intact blood clot shaped like a lung passage.
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Karl-Göran Sjögren An Ancient Case of the Plague Could Rewrite History
A 4,900-year-old skeleton has turned the accepted story of the disease on its head.
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Elaine Thompson / AP The U.S. Appetite for Sugar Has Skyrocketed
Americans are eating too much of the sweet stuff, and a staggering portion of it is coming from drinks like soda.
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Morinka / Shutterstock How Pink Salt Took Over Millennial Kitchens
It’s not healthier for you. It doesn’t technically come from the Himalayas. But pink salt’s appeal has exploded nonetheless.
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Tomasz Bobrzynski / Getty The AI That Knows Exactly What You Want to Eat
Can an app lead to better-tasting food by digitally measuring flavor?
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Reuters The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day
The alleged creation of the world's first gene-edited infants was full of technical errors and ethical blunders. Here are the 15 most damning details.
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Mike Segar / Reuters Victoria’s Secret Has a Mean-Girl Problem
For generations, fashion brands were free to set strict standards for feminine appearance. Then social media happened.
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Philippe Laurenson / Reuters I Smelled Like a Man for a Day
There’s a reason men’s body washes and deodorants all seem to have that same, specific scent.
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Brendan McDermid / Reuters ‘Juul’s a Business, and They’re Behaving Like a Business’
The e-cigarette giant is on an atonement tour. But who is it really for?
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Jianan Yu / Reuters Americans Are Dying Even Younger
Drug overdoses and suicides are causing American life expectancy to drop.
