The use of puberty blocking drugs to treat adolescents with gender dysphoria or incongruence has recently come under scrutiny following a decision by the UK High Court. Three judges ruled that children under 16 were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo such treatment. The case has raised questions about the effects […]
With COVID-19 rates spiking in November, and talks of more shutdowns happening in December, the world is impatiently waiting for a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Since the beginning of the virus, researchers have been working on developing a vaccine, but May 15, 2020 marked the beginning of Operation Warp Speed (OWS)—our nation’s ambitious attempt […]
The emergency approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and the imminent roll-out of several other vaccines in 2021 raises serious questions about New Zealand’s likely uptake of this vital public health response. Recent research into New Zealanders’ attitudes to vaccination suggest positions have become more polarized over the last decade, with 60% […]
Memories are part of our lives, the good and the bad. Through our senses, experiences reach our brain where networks of nerve cells encode them into a memory. It was previously unclear why only certain nerve cells join together for this purpose. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have now discovered […]
New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian, who last week carried on working for up to two hours while awaiting the results of a rapid COVID test, wasn’t the first Australian to “soldier on” in the face of health concerns and a big day at work. And she almost certainly won’t be the last, despite the […]
Young adults aren’t drinking as much as they used to. In fact, more than a quarter don’t drink alcohol at all, recent surveys show. It’s good news for health. But there is also a downside in the data: While alcohol use is falling among 18-to-22-year-olds, marijuana use is inching upward. The number of young adults […]
Scams and fraud exact a heavy toll on older adults, with estimates of yearly losses ranging from $3 billion to $36 billion in the U.S. alone. Lasting damage can occur. Because many seniors live off of resources accumulated across their working lifetimes, such as retirement savings, victims may be unable to recoup what’s taken from […]
Scrolling through your phone when you can’t sleep at night, you find yourself on TikTok, watching an endless stream of videos of strangers participating in dance trends and filtered face effects. But among all the renegade-ing and clips of cats making cocktails, you might stumble upon an entire community of people using the app to […]
When it comes to divorce in 2020, don’t believe everything you read. Headlines in newspapers across the country implying that the pandemic has led to a rise in divorces are erroneous, according to University of Virginia sociology professor Brad Wilcox. In a recent article for the Washington Post, Wilcox wrote that divorce is actually on […]
Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in nearly every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.” With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths […]
