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Science / Mind & Body

A vintage ad for patent medicines, which usually didn't list their active ingredients. We now know that many contained morphine, cocaine, opium and more.

How Advertising Shaped the First Opioid Epidemic

And what it can teach us about the second

Why We Should Test Heart Drugs On a ‘Virtual Human’ Instead of Animals

Thousands of animals are used for heart drug tests each year—but research shows that computer-simulated trials are more accurate

Vanessa Brandon worried that her cancer was a burden on her family: “I don’t want my sickness to become their sickness.”

Could Immunotherapy Lead the Way to Fighting Cancer?

A new treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer is offering hope to patients with advanced disease

Your Low-Calorie Sweetener Could Be Making You Fat

There are several ways that consuming artificial sweeteners might contribute to obesity

The Proliferation of Happiness

A professor of consumer culture tracks the history of positive psychology

The trepanated skull of a Neolithic woman. The fact that the hole is rounded off by ingrowth of new bone suggests that the patient survived the operation.

No, Getting a Hole Drilled in Your Head Was Never a Migraine Cure

The ancient and controversial procedure was used for a slew of reasons, but to ‘let the headache out’ was not one of them

Fifty years after researchers dismissed the idea of learning while you sleep, we now know that sound and smell cues can reactivate memories during this time of rest.

Sleep-Learning Was a Myth, But You Could Strengthen Memories While You Snooze

Neuroscientists find that sound and smell cues could solidify lessons you learn during the day

Winter Olympics

What Reddit Can Tell Us About the Afterlives of Banned Olympic Drugs

We analyzed 150,000 comments to find that the Internet is still openly discussing these mind-bending stimulants

A South Korean athlete receives acupuncture treatment

Winter Olympics

When Treating Sports Injuries, Does the West Do It Best?

As the Olympics kick off in South Korea, two radically different approaches to training and treating athletes will be on display

Will blue packets replace pink ones soon?

New Research

Heart-Stopping Arrow Poison Could Be the Key to Male Birth Control

A non-toxic version of the compound interrupts fertilization in rats

Healthcare providers leave a village after completion of a culling operation in response to a bird flu outbreak in Budgebudge, West Bengal, India.

The Next Pandemic

The Pandemic Everyone Fears Is Flu In the Wrong Place At the Wrong Time

Governments should constantly be preparing for outbreaks, instead of just hastily responding to threats as they arise

A Counterintuitive Idea for Treating Severe Depression: Stay Awake

Doctors are finding that sleep deprivation actually helps lift some people out of depression. Now they want to know why

At just 18 months old, young children can show biological evidence of added stress.

New Research

How a Mother’s Depression Shows Up in Her Baby’s DNA

Researchers find that at just 18 months, infants can have cellular damage related to stress

It's not as bad as it sounds.

Sorry, Guys: Your Y Chromosome May Be Doomed

But don’t worry, men aren’t going anywhere

This cartoon from Harper's Weekly depicts how opiates were used in the 19th century to help babies cope with teething.

Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction

Doctors then, as now, overprescribed the painkiller to patients in need, and then, as now, government policy had a distinct bias

The Next Pandemic

When a Medical “Cure” Makes Things Much, Much Worse

In 1960s Japan, a bizarre outbreak of hairy green tongues failed to set off alarms around the world

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