Sad Music is Blue, Literally (05/23)
In Only the Beautiful, the historical novel by Susan Meissner, readers are introduced to Rosanne 'Rosie' Maras, a teenage girl who has lost her family and is placed under the care of her parents' former employers. To most, Rosie seems like a normal girl, but she's hiding a secret: when she hears sounds, she sees colors. When her secret is...
New Advances in Treating Vision Loss (05/23)
After a mysterious event that blinded the entire world population, the characters in Blind Spots use devices called vidders to see. In real life, many people are experiencing vision improvement through technology that might sound like something out of a science fiction novel. From smart glasses to implantable contact lenses, vision ...
The Importance of Doulas Today (05/23)
Despite its original ancient Greek definition of 'a woman who serves,' the word 'doula' has come to mean 'one who mothers the mother.' In caring for mothers and their newborns, doulas advocate, listen, advise and comfort. They are professionally trained to provide emotional and informational support during pregnancy and labor as well as ...
Bonding Over Shared Trauma (05/23)
In Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach, main characters Sally and Billy form an unbreakable bond after they both witness the death of Sally's older sister Kathy, who is Billy's girlfriend. Research on shared traumatic experiences shows a clear pattern in which people who have endured the same trauma often have a strong ...
The Life Cycle of a Star (04/23)
In Under Alien Skies, Dr. Philip Plait takes readers on a tour of the universe, including discussing what it might be like to live on planets in a variety of different star systems. A major factor to consider for this thought exercise is the mass of the star or stars involved, and what point they are at in their life cycles.
Stars are...
Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (04/23)
The discovery of DNA is one of the greatest scientific achievements in the modern era, and possibly one of the most significant in history. The credit has long gone to James Watson and Francis Crick, who publicized the famous double-helix structure of DNA and the rest, as PBS
notes, 'is Nobel Prize history.'
The problem is this is an ...
Trauma and the Brain (04/23)
Rape survivor Erika Krouse rarely dreams. She has lost memories. She has trouble remembering what happened the prior week but knows in spectacular detail how it felt to be raped when she was a child by someone her mother loved. A heartbreaking passage in her memoir Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation explains, 'It's ...
The Healing Properties of Tea (03/23)
Spice Road, the debut novel by Maiya Ibrahim, features the Shields, a group of warriors sworn to protect the desert city of Qalia from magical beings and monsters. These warriors are gifted with magical abilities to perform their duties, but these powers only manifest when they drink misra, an ancient tea gifted to the people of Qalia. ...
Dignitas and Death with Dignity (03/23)
In her book In Love, Amy Bloom's husband, Brian Ameche, decides to end his life prematurely, before his Alzheimer's disease becomes too debilitating.
Being Americans, they first explored taking advantage of laws in the US allowing physician-assisted suicide, also known as death with dignity. This option first became available in ...
Naloxone (Narcan) (02/23)
In Tracy Kidder's Rough Sleepers, the drug naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, saves the lives of multiple people in the throes of an overdose from opioids like fentanyl and oxycodone.
A relative of morphine, naloxone was first patented in 1961 by American scientists looking for a medication to treat constipation ...
The Discovery of Plate Tectonics (02/23)
In Annalee Newitz's science fiction novel The Terraformers, characters threaten to trigger the development of plate tectonics on the planet Sask-E as a form of political leverage. The theory of plate tectonics has revolutionized our understanding of our planet and its geological processes. This theory states that the outer layer of Earth,...
Frontotemporal Dementia (02/23)
In Julie Osaka's novel,
The Swimmers, one of the main characters suffers from memory loss due to dementia.
The
Mayo Clinic defines 'dementia' as 'a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life.' It's not one disease, as many different conditions can cause dementia. ...
BRCA Gene Mutations and Prophylactic Mastectomy Surgery (01/23)
In This Boy We Made, author Taylor Harris finds out that she has a BRCA2 genetic mutation that puts her at about a 50% higher than average risk of developing breast cancer, and decides to have a prophylactic double mastectomy.
A mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene is associated with a higher risk of certain types of cancer. Dr. Mary-...
Susto (10/22)
In Manuel Muñoz's The Consequences, the story 'Susto' describes a man's disturbed psychological state after he discovers a dead body in a field. The Spanish word 'susto' can be translated into English as 'fright,' but it also refers to an illness associated with certain Hispanic and Indigenous populations in Latin America and the ...
The Evolution of the U.S. Spacesuit (10/22)
In Andy Weir's science fiction novel, Project Hail Mary, the main character periodically dons a spacesuit to perform maintenance outside his spacecraft or to keep himself safe when conditions inside it become life-threatening.
Spacesuits are critical to humanity's ability to explore the cosmos. The astronaut must be protected from (and...
The Intelligent Octopus (10/22)
In Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea, the characters Ha Nguyen and Evrim discuss at length the extraordinary neurological traits of octopuses and how they are likely the key to unlocking a model of consciousness completely alien to humans. Ha mentions, for one, that two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are not even in its brain but ...
The Hubble Telescope (10/22)
In The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy, Moiya McTier references the discoveries made by the Hubble telescope. NASA refers to the Hubble as 'the most famous telescope,' and the reasons are easy to see. For over 30 years, it has provided insights and never-before-seen imagery — and it's still evolving.
The telescope is ...
The Camera Obscura (10/22)
A central theme in 2 A.M. in Little America is the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and illusion, and Pushcart Prize-winning writer and journalist Ken Kalfus uses recurrent imagery throughout the novel of mirrors, lenses and reflective surfaces to symbolize the way that our perception of reality is filtered through and refracted...
Aphasia (09/22)
In Lean Fall Stand, the main character suffers a massive and debilitating stroke during a whiteout storm in Antarctica. After being rescued, he returns home to England to begin the long, arduous task of learning to speak again. The medical term for the loss of the ability to understand or express speech is aphasia. It is usually caused by...
Larval Therapy (09/22)
For a novel that focuses on a physician during an incredibly bloody war,
The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters is generally not too explicit in describing the treatment of wounds. The passage below is an exception; when main character Jayne's brother suffers a pike wound to the thigh that soon becomes infected, her mentor ...
The Life Changing Reality of Bionic Limbs (08/22)
The protagonist of Nnedi Okorafor's novel Noor has undergone a number of procedures and augmentations to reduce her physical discomfort and improve her standard of living. Born with missing and deformed limbs, and injured years later in a car accident, being fitted with sophisticated bionic limbs grants her the strength — both ...
Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (08/22)
In his seminal work, On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin elucidated the theory of evolution by natural selection, explaining how organisms better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on their genes. What he didn't explain, however, was human evolution — that was addressed in his second but ...
San Francisco's Zen Hospice (07/22)
In an essay from Serious Face titled 'A House at the End of the World,' Jon Mooallem writes about Zen Hospice, a palliative care facility opened in San Francisco in 1986 by members of the local Zen Buddhist community who were heartsick seeing unhoused people dying on the streets. They had the idea to open a hospice that would offer them ...
Lewy Body Dementia (07/22)
In Matt Godman's novel,
Carolina Moonset, one of the main characters has Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), a degenerative condition similar to Alzheimer's disease.
According to the
National Institute of Health, 'Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a disease associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. These ...
The Science of Forgiveness (07/22)
Could you forgive the person who murdered your beloved son?
Weeks after Debra Trice was convicted of the first-degree murder of Raymond Jones she received a letter. It was from Margaret Jones, Raymond's mother. Mrs. Jones wrote, '[Y]ou have my forgiveness. So, when you feel you cannot make it, look up and talk to God, Jehovah is his ...
A Brief History of Cloning (06/22)
One of author Sarah Gailey's greatest skills on display in
The Echo Wife is that of making the science depicted look and feel real. The cloning in the novel seems plausible. But how far have humans actually come in the field of cloning? Where did it begin and where are we now?
First, we should establish what cloning is. As
Dr. Helen ...
Deep Space Travel Technologies (05/22)
From the first description of its maiden launch in the year 2072, the fictional Lazarus is more than just a spaceship in Riley Redgate's Alone Out Here. It is a cryogenic ark filled with extensive samples of Earth's faunal DNA, and an integrated archive for preserving a cross-section of humanity's archaeological treasures. Moreover, the ...
Conflicts Over Credit: CRISPR and HIV (05/22)
When a scientific breakthrough is achieved, it can be a moment of major celebration. Depending on the implications of that advancement, previously unknown individuals can find themselves vaulted into the highest levels of celebrity. Yet, the challenge of deciding who is truly responsible for the scientific advancement can be contentious. ...
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Human Race (04/22)
Science fiction tends to reflect deeper moral issues and fears confronting a society at the time it is written. Storytelling is a safe method to express anxieties about the state of the world. It allows authors and readers an opportunity to explore the murkiness of uncertainty in a non-threatening manner. Reading and discussing sci-fi is ...
Gene Editing (03/22)
One of the central mysteries in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Klara and the Sun surrounds the question of how some children are 'lifted' and others are not. Seemingly benefiting from a class-based or other means-based differentiation, those who are lifted have access to higher-quality education and additional advantages. Precisely how some ...
Twins (02/22)
Brit Bennett's novel, The Vanishing Half, follows the lives of Stella and Desiree Vignes, identical twin girls born in Louisiana in 1938.
As you likely know, there are broadly two types of twins: fraternal and identical. Fraternal, or dizygotic, twins are formed when two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate spermatozoa, ...
DNA Profiling (02/22)
In Kia Abdullah's courtroom drama Take It Back, the prosecution relies on a forensic technique called DNA profiling. Also known as genetic fingerprinting, the process can be used to match bodily material found at a crime scene to a suspect, to identify a person's relatives, to determine one's risk of some genetic diseases and to identify ...
Leeches in Medicine (02/22)
The Doctors Blackwell, Janice P. Nimura's biography of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, explores the tools 19th-century physicians used to address their patients' needs. Many common ailments were believed to be caused by an excess of blood, and consequently removing some of a person's blood was thought to be efficacious; often doctors ...
The Falsity of a Real Reality (01/22)
Humans are incapable of knowing for certain what is real. We use our five senses to collect data about the environment around us. Data is the key word here; we don't see, hear, touch, taste or smell reality. We use our senses to sample data about the environment.
This data is processed by our brains, which then interpret and give form ...
Ovarian Cancer (11/21)
In Danielle Evans' collection The Office of Historical Corrections, the short story 'Happily Ever After' centers around Lyssa, who at 30 years old is navigating life after her mother's death from ovarian cancer and has been advised to have her own ovaries removed as soon as possible. Ovarian cancer is the seventh most commonly diagnosed ...
Nature vs. Nurture (09/21)
The 'nature vs. nurture' debate is what sparks the narrative tension in M.O. Walsh's novel
The Big Door Prize. The character Cherilyn refers to the concept of nature vs. nurture when she explains how the unusual DNAMIX machine 'tells you your potential, [...] what you could have been if everything would have worked out just right.'
...
Archaebacteria (09/21)
Carole Stivers' novel The Mother Code imagines the rapid spread of a deadly genetically engineered disease called IC-NAN. The widespread proliferation of the disease is due in large part to its receptive archaebacteria, which serve as both host and incubator for the IC-NAN's DNA; as one character puts it, 'these archaebacteria are capable...
Viruses and Evolution (09/21)
One of the most interesting concepts discussed in Some Assembly Required is that almost all life is primarily comprised of borrowed components. We share 95 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees. Only two percent of the human genome is unique to our species. The rest of us is adopted, adapted, tweaked and outright stolen.
Viruses make up ...
The Benefit of Sports for Young People Living With ADHD (09/21)
In Sarah Tomp's The Easy Part of Impossible, diving proves to be a vital lifeline for teenager Ria Williams, who lives with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The intense structure, discipline and exertion called for by the sport allows Ria to channel her excess energy into something positive and helps her to master the ...
Microdot Technology (08/21)
In Agent Sonya, Ben Macintyre's account of real-life spy Ursula Kuczynski, several operatives are said to have used microdots, or tiny pieces of film on which miniaturized text is recorded, to smuggle information to the Soviet Union. Still in use today, these diminutive data caches are produced through a specialized photography process ...
Sara Seager and the Search for Exoplanets (08/21)
Sara Seager, the author of
The Smallest Lights in the Universe, is an astrophysicist who served as a chairperson on NASA's
Starshade Project, a mission to locate intelligent life on planets outside of our Solar System, a.k.a 'exoplanets' ('exo' is a Greek prefix meaning 'outside'). Exoplanets are challenging to discover, in part because...
Early Anesthetics (06/21)
In The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake, Nora and Daniel use diethyl ether, referred to simply as 'ether,' to render a patient unconscious in order to perform a surgical procedure on him. While the procedure is ultimately successful, the characters are still unsure of the exact effects of the drug. Nora and Daniel's study of and ...
Myasthenia Gravis (05/21)
In her memoir The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness, Sarah Ramey mentions a litany of so-called mysterious illnesses, some of which are widely known—lupus, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis—and others that may be less familiar to readers. I was surprised to see her mention a relatively unknown...
Genetically Modified Organisms: Past, Present and Future (04/21)
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have received a bad rap. They're banned from being grown or used in food throughout most of Europe. They're caustically labeled on groceries in the United States. And they are frequently despised by foodies, farmers, environmentalists and the devoutly religious alike — for reasons ranging from ...
Aneurysms (04/21)
In Julia Alvarez's novel Afterlife, Antonia's husband Sam dies suddenly of an aneurysm. An aneurysm is an enlargement or bulge in an artery from a weakening of the arterial wall that can cause internal bleeding if it ruptures. Most aneurysms don't rupture, and most people who have them don't experience any symptoms at all. However, when ...
DNA Testing and Law Enforcement (04/21)
In The Lost Family, Libby Copeland examines some of the complex issues surrounding commercial DNA testing, including concerns about privacy and consent. To what extent should we be comfortable entrusting our DNA to powerful corporations that can take our most intimate information—our genetic data—and put it to uses we aren't ...
Cult Psychology (03/21)
Cults are often difficult to identify from the outside, given that a common characteristic is members' denial that any dysfunctional elements are at play within their community. Many countries, including the U.S., do not have a legal definition, but prefer to use a series of criteria. However, a sort of colloquial understanding is more ...
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (03/21)
In
Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker writes about the Galvin family's experience with schizophrenia and discusses early research into the disorder performed under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
The
NIMH's website states it's the 'lead federal agency for research on mental disorders,' with a mission '...
Proteus Syndrome (02/21)
Midway through Patricia Lockwood's novel
No One Is Talking About This, the unnamed protagonist learns that her sister's baby has been diagnosed with Proteus syndrome. You might recognize this as the condition believed to have affected Joseph Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man, whose late-19th-century life has been dramatized in a 1979
...
