Though I’d read the excerpt adapted for the New York Times magazine, picking up The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, with its regal and imposing title, was just a little intimidating. But open the first page and the language propels and compels the reader to follow the disease, its…
Though my writing life ranges from writing health stories for teens to writing about research topics and careers issues for scientists, the sources that I speak with for the former type of article generally don’t overlap with those for the latter. Until now. Last spring, I was working on an article about the common cold,…
Summer’s distracted me from blogging, but I just returned from the American Chemical Society meeting in Washington, DC. That meeting is a huge mishmash for me– a combination of catching up with former chemistry colleagues, meeting up with current writing colleagues, and getting myself back up to speed on what’s new with molecules. Though it’s…
Global health has been on my mind again recently. An article I wrote for Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (subscription required) examines efforts to find new drugs for tuberculosis. TB is a wily organism that finds a way to wall itself off in the body. Under the best circumstances, knocking out “the best” TB, the drug…
Yesterday, we plotted how best to see the NYC fireworks display tonight with the least amount of inconvenience. In other years, we’ve had friends with roof access and good proximity. And a few years ago, we lived in an apartment in New Jersey that sat on a hill facing Manhattan with a bay window vantage…
More FDA warnings for cold sufferers– and really anyone who takes pain relievers– to keep in mind. Acetaminophen– the molecule at the left– is found in Tylenol and a whole host of other pain relievers, cold medicines and prescription drugs. At lower doses, it’s safe, but at higher doses can cause liver damage and even…
The policy side of my reporting head has also turned to health issues over the last year or so, particularly global health. From a Western perspective, it’s easy to take for granted the scope of care and treatments that are available. But the developing world is light-years away from even hoping to have access to…
The Molecule of the Week is the active ingredient in Zicam, the nasal gel cold remedy that the FDA warned consumers to stop using this week. What’s the problem? Some users have reported losing their sense of smell after using the gel. On Tuesday, the FDA stepped in and issued a warning letter to Matrixx…
It’s been a rainy week in New York City, and my office next to our front porch and my container garden has me thinking about that ubiquitous wetness. It’s been soaking my plants, and after a quick errand on Friday afternoon, its dampness lurked for hours on the hem of my jeans. It’s easy to…
Over the last several months I’ve gotten press releases just about every week about Vitamin D, usually talking about studies that show health problems connected to Vitamin D deficiencies. A lot of this discussion about “the optimal dose” of Vitamin D is still under debate, though. The main problem is that it is possible to get too much.…