A 54-year-old New Jersey woman who was the second person to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig, and who lived with the organ for 47 days, died on Sunday, surgeons at NYU Langone Health announced on Tuesday. The patient, Lisa Pisano, was critically ill, suffering from both…

The flight to Cleveland was quick. Her father picked her up at the airport and drove directly to the Cleveland Clinic Children’s hospital. Her regular doctor, Ellen Rome, the head of the Center for Adolescent Medicine there, wasn’t in the office that holiday week but arranged for the young woman…

An expert on Parkinson’s disease from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months from last summer through this spring, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden’s physician, according to official visitor logs. The expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, is a…

Climate change and contaminated water have combined to create an epidemic of kidney disease.

A hard-won provision of the Affordable Care Act allows young adults to stay on their family’s insurance until age 26. But after that, those without employer-based insurance face an array of complicated choices, including whether to shop on the insurance plan exchanges, apply for Medicaid or roll the dice and…

This article is part of our Pets special section on scientists’ growing interest in our animal companions. Many students begin veterinary school with career aspirations that date back to childhood, when they fell in love with the idea of ministering to cats and dogs, or horses, or the exotic animals…

About a month ago, Judith Hansen popped awake in the predawn hours, thinking about her father’s brain. Her father, Morrie Markoff, was an unusual man. At 110, he was thought to be the oldest in the United States. His brain was unusual, too, even after he recovered from a stroke…

The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to limit the broad regulatory authority of federal agencies could lead to the elimination or weakening of thousands of rules on the environment, health care, worker protection, food and drug safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more. The decision is a major victory in…

The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights. The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to…

It didn’t become part of vaccination programs in Africa until 2024. What if it had come faster? What if the shots had arrived9 years ago? 143,000. That’s how many children’s deaths could have been averted. By Stephanie Nolen Stephanie Nolen interviewed more than 30 scientists, health officials and other key…

Spring Fertility, a clinic in Midtown Manhattan, looks like the place where the main characters on “Broad City” would have wound up if the millennial sitcom had done an episode about egg freezing. The waiting room has books by America’s youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman and its Instagram poet laureate…

A scientist whose research has been at the center of controversy over an Alzheimer’s drug candidate has been charged with fraud. A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Hoau-Yan Wang, a professor at the City College of New York, on charges of falsifying data to obtain grants totaling roughly $16…

V. Craig Jordan, a pharmacologist whose discovery that a failed contraceptive, tamoxifen, could block the growth of breast cancer cells opened up a whole new class of drugs and helped save the lives of millions of women, died on June 9 at his home in Houston. He was 76. Balkees…

The life of a Florida carpenter ant can be brutal. These half-inch ants are territorial and have violent bouts with ants from rival colonies in the Southeast. Combat can leave the ants with leg injuries. But as scientists recently discovered, these ants have evolved an effective wound treatment: amputation. In…

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the latest in a novel class of treatments that has been greeted with hope, disappointment and skepticism. The drug, donanemab, to be sold under the brand name Kisunla, was shown in studies to modestly slow the…

A patient walks into a hospital room, sits down and starts talking to a doctor. Only in this case, the doctor is a hologram. It might sound like science fiction, but it is the reality for some patients at Crescent Regional Hospital in Lancaster, Texas. In May, the hospital group…

Dr. Mildred Thornton Stahlman, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician whose research on fatal lung disease in newborns led to lifesaving treatments and to the creation, in 1961, of one of the first neonatal intensive care units, died on Saturday at her home in Brentwood, Tenn. She was 101. Her death was…

Ann Lurie, a self-described hippie who went on to become one of Chicago’s most celebrated philanthropists, in one instance giving more than $100 million to a hospital where she had once worked as a pediatric nurse, died on Monday. She was 79. Her death was announced in a statement by…

When I was growing up, my dad, who has left the country only a few times, told me about the trip to Europe he took with his parents when he was 14, in 1966. He told me how much Nonie loved the immaculate Swiss streets and window boxes fizzing with…

These early studies “highlighted both the potential that we could learn from dogs, but also that we were going to need bigger sample sizes to do it really well,” said Elinor Karlsson, a geneticist at UMass Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute. And so, researchers began creating large citizen…

Ever since scientists discovered influenza infecting American cows earlier this year, they have been puzzling over how it spreads from one animal to another. An experiment carried out in Kansas and Germany has shed some light on the mystery. Scientists failed to find evidence that the virus can spread as…

“Hey, buddy, how are you doing?” a man wearing a Boba Fett costume said as he leaned over the bed of a young boy in a hospital gown. It was a Sunday afternoon in the emergency room at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where Dr. Alex Arroyo, the hospital’s director…

Superficially, abortion rights had a good run at the Supreme Court this term. Two weeks ago, the justices unanimously let an abortion pill remain widely available. On Thursday, the court dismissed a case about Idaho’s strict abortion ban, which had the effect of letting emergency rooms in the state perform…

All Americans ages 6 months and older should receive one of the new Covid-19 vaccines when they become available this fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The recommendation comes as the nation faces a summer wave of Covid, with the number of infections rising in…

The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk. The one-sentence, unsigned decision declared that the case had been “improvidently granted,” meaning a…

The Supreme Court seems poised to temporarily allow emergency abortions in Idaho when a woman’s health is at risk, according to a copy of what appeared to be the opinion that showed up briefly on the court’s website on Wednesday. The unsigned opinion dismissed the case on procedural grounds, stating…

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, chair of the Senate health committee, called on a government watchdog to investigate why insurance companies are still charging women for birth control — a move that thrust access to contraceptives back into the spotlight. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office,…

Federal health officials warned that the risk of contracting dengue in the United States has increased this year, a worrying sign as global cases of the mosquito-borne disease hit record numbers. In the first half of this year, countries in the Americas reported twice as many cases as were reported…

Joanna Bailey, a family physician and obesity specialist, doesn’t want to tell her patients that they can’t take Wegovy, but she has gotten used to it. Around a quarter of the people she sees in her small clinic in Wyoming County would benefit from the weight-loss medications known as GLP-1s,…

Unlike most other supplements, fish oil has been rigorously studied, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. But the results of those studies have been mixed, leaving researchers and doctors still debating whether fish oil is beneficial for heart health. They have also revealed that…

Amy Conroy sat alone in a veterinary exam room, hands clutching a water bottle, eyes blinking back tears. Her 16-year-old cat, Leisel, had been having trouble breathing. Now, she was waiting for an update. The door opened, and Laurie Maxwell came in. Ms. Maxwell works for MedVet, a 24-hour emergency…

Heather Massey brought Ladybird to the veterinarian when the 9-year-old mutt began having seizures. A scan from an M.R.I. machine revealed bad news: brain cancer. With the prognosis grim, Ms. Massey decided against further treatment at the animal hospital near her home in Athens, Ga., and Ladybird died four months…

Pharmacy benefit managers are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government. New York Times pharmaceutical reporter, Rebecca Robbins, explains how.

If you’ve ever had trouble getting a prescription drug, chances are you’ve run into a pharmacy benefit manager. These companies, known as P.B.M.s, play a crucial but often hidden role in deciding which drugs you can get and how much you will personally have to pay. They are middlemen in…

Pets are more popular than ever. Roughly two-thirds of American homes have at least one pet, up from 56 percent in 1988, according to the American Pet Products Association, and Americans spent $136.8 billion on their pets in 2022, up from $123.6 billion in 2021. An estimated 91 million households…

It can take generic makers years to get ready to produce a drug, and they need to have a sense of the potential market in order to commit to investing in production. So, in the meantime, Gilead will aim to to ship “sufficient volumes” of lenacapavir to low-income countries as…

When P.B.M.s overcharge, it can increase costs for patients, not just employers and government programs like Medicare. The country’s most popular Medicare drug plan, SilverScript Choice, covered nearly 3 million Medicare beneficiaries last year. Caremark is its P.B.M., and it overcharges. Caremark uses Medicare’s money to pay pharmacies, including its…

Snap. Crack. Pop. These sounds, once used to sell a popular breakfast cereal, are now enticing people to visit the doctor thanks to a wave of chiropractic videos sweeping social media. The most popular videos follow a familiar template: A patient enters with a debilitating condition. A chiropractor maneuvers the…

Doctors and physical therapists have long incorporated aerobic exercise into treatment programs for lower back pain. Movement can simultaneously ease lower back pain and also strengthen the muscles that support your back. Still, many people with back pain can be hesitant to exercise. A new study, published on Wednesday in…

In July 2016, a heat wave hit Boston, with daytime temperatures averaging 92 degrees for five days in a row. Some local university students who were staying in town for the summer got lucky and were living in dorms with central air-conditioning. Other students, not so much — they were…

On a busy day at the Kwapong Health Centre in rural Ghana, Beatrice Nyamekye put contraceptive implants into the arms of a half-dozen women, and gave eight or nine more a three-month hormonal injection to prevent pregnancy. A few sought condoms or birth control pills, but most wanted something longer…

Lesa Walton suffered for years with rheumatoid arthritis. “It was awful,” said Ms. Walton, 57, who lives in Wenatchee, Wash. “I kept getting sicker and sicker.” She also had high blood pressure, and she was obese. Doctors told her to diet and exercise, which she did, to no avail. Then…

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents’ mental health. Warning labels — like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products — are one of the…

Drinking increased during the pandemic, which may be why news of any kind about alcohol seems to have found a receptive audience in recent years. In 2022, an episode of the podcast “Huberman Lab” that was devoted to elaborating alcohol’s various risks to body and brain was one of the…

Kim Short waited in the doctor’s exam room on an icy day in February, exhausted from the first trimester of pregnancy and trembling in withdrawal from methamphetamine, alcohol, Xanax and Klonopin. She stared at the floor, her black hair curtaining face tattoos of a dagger and stitches, memorials to friends…

A new law in Florida allowing doctors to perform cesarean sections in outpatient birthing centers has raised serious safety concerns among medical experts, who say the procedures carry a small but real risk of life-threatening complications and should not be undertaken outside hospitals. The proposed new facilities, to be called…

Catherine, the Princess of Wales, said on Friday that she planned to take part in a parade on Saturday marking the birthday of King Charles III, a tentative return to the public stage after confirming in March that she was being treated for cancer. The news, which Catherine released in…

At the end of “Inside Out,” the 2015 Pixar movie about the emotional life of a girl named Riley, a new button appears on the console used to control Riley’s mood. It’s emblazoned with one word: Puberty. Joy, one of the main characters who embodies Riley’s emotions, shrugs it off.…

Many firearm owners in the United States do not securely store their guns, even when the weapon is kept loaded and there are children in the home, according to a report released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report, which relied on data from 2021…

Five years on the Phoenix streets battered Vance Blair’s body. His vision dimmed, his speech slowed, and his hands began to twitch. A bulging pelvis revealed the need for hernia surgery, and the vacant lot where he slept was no place to keep dressings clean. Mr. Blair often lingered by…

Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist whose research on fungi helped to lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease, died on June 5. He was 90. Chiba Kazuhiro, the president of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Dr. Endo…

Space changes you, even during short trips off the planet. Four people who spent three days off Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and mental changes that included modest declines in cognitive tests, stressed immune systems and genetic changes within their cells, scientists report in a package of papers published…

The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed removing medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, making it easier for them to qualify for car, home and small-business loans. The proposed rule, which will go through a public comment period, would not take effect immediately. It would…

Beneath a row of fir trees River Shannon Aloia walks along a remote dirt road on national forest land, scanning the ground for morels. “Find it,” she commands her dog, Jasper. The search pays off for Ms. Aloia, an avid forager: She spies a solitary honey-colored morel, and plucks it.…

On a typical day, Ali Mullen races from her job at the county health department in Helena, Mont., to pick up dinner for her three children, heads home to feed them and then goes back out for a violin lesson or a school play, crisscrossing the small city in her…

A multi-agency coalition of law enforcement agents will begin tackling the unruly market of illegal e-cigarettes, under pressure from antismoking groups, lawmakers and the tobacco industry urging federal authorities to stop the flood of vaping devices favored by adolescents. The Justice Department announced the new effort, which is expected to…

At an assisted living facility in New York State, a small crowd had gathered at the dining room entrance at lunchtime, waiting for the doors to open. As a researcher observed, one woman, growing tired and frustrated, asked the man in front of her to move; he didn’t appear to…

A committee of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted on Wednesday to update the formula for the Covid vaccine ahead of an anticipated fall immunization campaign, now an annual step to try to offer better protection against versions of the virus in circulation. The unanimous vote by the…

The American Cancer Society has begun an ambitious, far-reaching study focusing on a population that has long been overlooked, despite high rates of cancer and cancer-related deaths: Black women. The initiative, called VOICES of Black Women, is believed to be the first long-term population study of its size to zero…

Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is being tried in federal court for falsely claiming on a gun purchase application that he did not use illicit drugs. Testimony from his ex-wife and former girlfriends describe his drug-fueled temper; his search for his dealer on the streets; his large cash withdrawals from…

Elephant seals in South America died in massive numbers because the bird flu virus acquired mutations that allowed it to spread among mammals, according to a new study. The research offers the first genetic and epidemiological evidence of bird flu virus transmission among mammals. And the findings hold a warning:…

The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to approve the use of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. But the agency’s independent advisory panel of experts reviewed studies on June 4, and overwhelmingly decided against endorsing the treatment. Although not required, the F.D.A. often…

One of the nation’s premier medical advisory organizations has weighed in on long Covid with a 265-page report that recognizes the seriousness and persistence of the condition for millions of Americans. More than four years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, long Covid continues to damage many people’s ability…

An independent advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration rejected the use of MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder on Tuesday, highlighting the unparalleled regulatory challenges of a novel therapy using the drug commonly known as Ecstasy. Before the vote, members of the panel raised concerns about the designs…

Surgeons removed the kidney of a genetically engineered pig from a critically ill patient last week after the organ was damaged by inadequate blood flow related to a heart pump that the woman had also received, according to officials at NYU Langone Transplant Institute. The patient, Lisa Pisano, 54, who…

Using her arms as a makeshift clapboard, a Sudanese woman in a black hijab and black-and-white caftan clapped her hands together, signaling the beginning of the rehearsal. The other amateur Thespians, wearing comic stick-on mustaches, moved to their marks, improvising a scene in a women’s beauty salon where one patron’s…

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former government scientist both celebrated and despised for his work on Covid, on Monday forcefully denied Republican allegations that he sought to cover up the possibility that the pandemic originated in a laboratory, calling the accusation “absolutely false and simply preposterous.” In a tense appearance…

The chairmen of two Senate committees overseeing health policy, concerned about companies “padding their own profits” at the expense of patients, are looking into the practices of a data analytics firm that works with big insurers to cut payments to medical providers. The firm, MultiPlan, recommends what it says are…

House Republicans on Tuesday accused officials at the National Institutes of Health of orchestrating “a conspiracy at the highest levels” of the agency to hide public records related to the origins of the Covid pandemic. And the lawmakers promised to expand an investigation that has turned up emails in which…

Take a moment to imagine a small gray rock sitting in the palm of your hand. It’s silent, smooth and otherwise unremarkable. Are you bored yet? If so, that’s kind of the point. Most people will eventually lose interest in a dull piece of granite. So there’s a theory percolating…

Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows. A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit…

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday raised concerns about the health effects of MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing flaws in a company’s studies that could pose major obstacles to approval of a treatment anticipated to help people struggling with the condition. The agency said that…

A third farmworker in the United States has been found to be infected with bird flu, heightening concerns about an outbreak among dairy cattle first identified in March. The worker is the first in this outbreak to have respiratory symptoms, including a cough, sore throat and watery eyes, which generally…

Post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses among college students more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, climbing most sharply as the coronavirus pandemic shut down campuses and upended young adults’ lives, according to new research published on Thursday. The prevalence of PTSD rose to 7.5 percent from 3.4 percent during that period,…

Sue Johnson, a British-born Canadian clinical psychologist and best-selling author who developed a novel method of couples therapy based on emotional attachment, challenging what had been the dominant behavioral approach — the idea that behaviors are learned and thus can be changed — died on April 23 in Victoria, British…

Think for a minute about the little bumps on your tongue. You probably saw a diagram of those taste bud arrangements once in a biology textbook — sweet sensors at the tip, salty on either side, sour behind them, bitter in the back. But the idea that specific tastes are…

Fluctuating disease rates, innovative treatments and talk of “moonshots” in the White House may make cancer seem like a modern scourge. But a new discovery highlights how humans dealt with the illness and hunted for cures as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians. Scientists led by Edgard…

Louisiana lawmakers passed legislation on Thursday to make the state the first in the nation to designate abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances. Possession of the drugs without a prescription would be a crime punishable with jail time and thousands of dollars in fines. The legislation, which passed the State…

For the first time on record, cannabis has outpaced alcohol as the daily drug of choice for Americans. In 2022 there were 17.7 million people who reported using cannabis either every day or nearly every day, compared with 14.7 million who reported using alcohol with the same frequency, according to…

On the stunning Kenyan coast, about halfway between 15th-century ruins and the vibrant city of Mombasa, a small factory is helping to achieve one of Africa’s biggest health care goals: self-reliance. With fewer than 700 employees, Revital Healthcare makes 300 million syringes a year, enough to meet more than half…

Unpasteurized milk contaminated with H5N1, the bird-flu virus that has turned up in dairy herds in nine states, has been found to rapidly make mice sick, affecting multiple organs, according to a study published on Friday. The findings are not entirely surprising: At least a half-dozen cats have died after…

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. Molly Mirhashem is used to running around in circles — literally. Six days a week, Ms. Mirhashem runs near her home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Much of her weekly mileage…

Countries around the globe have failed to reach consensus on the terms of a treaty that would unify the world in a strategy against the inevitable next pandemic, trumping the nationalist ethos that emerged during Covid-19. The deliberations, which were scheduled to be a central item at the weeklong meeting…

Slowly but steadily, Marlene Nathanson was recovering. She had suffered a stroke in November 2022 at her home in Minneapolis and spent a week in a hospital; afterward, when she arrived at Episcopal Homes in St. Paul for rehabilitation, she couldn’t walk. Weakness in her right arm and hand left…

Beef tissue from a sick dairy cow has tested positive for the bird flu virus, federal officials said on Friday. The cow had been condemned to be culled because it was sick, and the meat did not enter the food supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department…

Why It Matters Colon and rectal cancer rates have risen among younger adults as rates have declined among older people, who are far more likely to get colonoscopies that can catch cancers and precancerous lesions called polyps. But though millennials born around 1990 are at almost twice the risk of…

A committee of experts that advises the Food and Drug Administration voted by large majorities on Thursday that a new blood test to screen people for colon and rectal cancers was safe and effective, and that its benefits outweighed its risks. But the group cautioned that the blood test had…

In more than a dozen states, doctors and nurses have resorted to paper and handwritten treatment orders to chart patient illnesses and track them, unable to access the detailed medical histories that have long been available only through computerized records. Patients have waited for long stints in emergency rooms, and…

A farmworker in Michigan has been diagnosed with bird flu, state officials announced on Wednesday, making it the second human case associated with the outbreak in cows. Officials said that the individual became infected with the virus, called H5N1, after exposure to infected livestock. The individual had only mild symptoms…

Just four months ago, Noland Arbaugh had a circle of bone removed from his skull and hair-thin sensor tentacles slipped into his brain. A computer about the size of a small stack of quarters was placed on top and the hole was sealed. Paralyzed below the neck, Mr. Arbaugh is…

Dr. Paul D. Parkman, whose research was instrumental in identifying the virus that causes rubella and developing a vaccine that has prevented an epidemic of the disease in the United States for more than 50 years, died on May 7 at his home in Auburn, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes…

At the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, a patient described a restraint that haunts him, more than eight years later.

Dr. Luch berated herself for not having thought to test the boy a day earlier, when she might have saved him if she had treated him for influenza. But the alarm she raised and the urgent activity that followed was testament to the strength of Cambodia’s disease tracking system and…

The Study The study looked at 2,322 emergency room visits for cannabis poisoning among people 65 and older in Ontario. The visits spanned 2015 through 2022, allowing researchers to see what happened before and after October 2018, when Canada legalized the sale of dried cannabis, and January 2020, when the…

There’s quite a good body of research now on the neuroscience of meditation, showing that it improves self-awareness, emotion regulation, self-control and many other things. Most people, if they’re honest with themselves, reach for some kind of coping habit when they are feeling stressed or down. Think food, alcohol, doomscrolling,…

Sexually transmitted diseases are resurging across the United States. More than 3,700 cases of congenital syphilis were reported in 2022, roughly 11 times the number recorded a decade ago. Syphilis during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage and stillbirth, and infants who survive may become blind or deaf or have severe…

It takes a lot of energy to grow a baby — just ask anyone who has been pregnant. But scientists are only now discovering just how much. In a study published on Thursday in the journal Science, Australian researchers estimated that a human pregnancy demands almost 50,000 dietary calories over…

With Pride events scheduled worldwide over the coming weeks, U.S. officials are bracing for a return of mpox, the infectious disease formerly called monkeypox that struck tens of thousands of gay and bisexual men worldwide in 2022. A combination of behavioral changes and vaccination quelled that outbreak, but a majority…

When a patient with a severe traumatic brain injury is comatose, in intensive care, unresponsive and hooked up to a ventilator, but not brain-dead, when is the time to withdraw life support? A small study on the fates of people in such situations suggests that doctors and patients’ families may…

As a reporter who covers sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open, honest communication. To have good sex — and to keep having good sex over time — couples must be willing to talk about it, they say. But some…

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved an innovative new treatment for patients with a form of lung cancer. It is to be used only by patients who have exhausted all other options to treat small cell lung cancer, and have a life expectancy of four to five months.…

Engineers and scientists have an enduring fascination with spider silk. Similar to typical worm silk that makes for comfy bedsheets, but much tougher, the material has inspired the invention of lighter and more breathable body armor and materials that could make airplane components stronger without adding weight. Researchers are even…

The Biden administration, under acute pressure from House lawmakers, moved on Wednesday to ban funding for a prominent virus-hunting nonprofit group whose work with Chinese scientists had put it at the heart of theories that Covid leaked from a lab. The decision, announced in a letter from the Department of…

Overdose deaths in the United States declined slightly last year, the first decrease in five years, according to preliminary federal data released Wednesday. The rare good news in the decades-old addiction crisis was attributable mostly to a drop in deaths from synthetic opioids, chiefly fentanyl, said researchers at the National…

Artificial intelligence is giving machines the power to generate videos, write computer code and even carry on a conversation. It is also accelerating efforts to understand the human body and fight disease. On Wednesday, Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s central artificial intelligence lab, and Isomorphic Labs, a sister company, unveiled…

Geriatrics is a field of sleuthing. To solve medical enigmas, doctors must become detectives, teasing out the effects of overlapping causes that include chronic conditions, acute injuries, social factors and the normal process of aging. It is a challenge that tests the patience of many doctors; the number of certified…

The four adult children were in agreement. Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. They had found a memory care facility about a mile from their parents’ house in Chelmsford, Mass., where they thought Mr. Curry would do better. But their…

After 30 years as one of England’s top pediatricians, Dr. Hilary Cass was hoping to begin her retirement by learning to play the saxophone. Instead, she took on a project that would throw her into an international fire: reviewing England’s treatment guidelines for the rapidly rising number of children with…

Half a century ago, one of the hottest questions in science was whether humans could teach animals to talk. Scientists tried using sign language to converse with apes and trained parrots to deploy growing English vocabularies. The work quickly attracted media attention — and controversy. The research lacked rigor, critics…

Richard “Rick” Slayman, who made history at age 62 as the first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig, has died about two months after the procedure. Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mr. Slayman had the operation, said in a statement on Saturday that its transplant team was…

The Biden administration said on Friday that it would compensate dairy farmers for cooperating with its efforts to limit the spread of the bird flu virus, part of a series of expansive measures aimed at containing an outbreak. The payment system amounted to one of the most forceful actions taken…

When Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went on a nationwide college tour last fall, he started to hear the same kind of question time and again: How are we supposed to connect with one another when nobody talks anymore? In an age when participation in community organizations, clubs and religious groups…