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In Focus

Why It’s Time to Rethink Birth Control

Can new approaches—a male contraceptive or a gel that stops disease as well as pregnancy—work better?

For the past year and a half, researchers at nine institutions have been recruiting couples to help test a novel kind of birth control. It’s a topical gel for men. When applied daily to the shoulders, it should achieve the tricky balancing act of limiting sperm production while maintaining testosterone levels—reducing the risk of pregnancy without inhibiting...

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In Depth

New Mothers on the Brink

They are dying at alarming rates in the United States. Treating mental illness, an often overlooked cause, could save many lives.

The Insomnia Genes

Poor sleep affects almost half of the country, and solutions have been hard to come by. Tracing the problem to its genetic roots may stop the tossing and turning.

The Primary Problem

Long the bedrock of medicine, the practice of primary care has been in need of a reinvention. Several models show promise. None of them will be cheap.

The Art of Active Surveillance

Sometimes prostate cancer is best served by a wait-and-see approach. Yet many patients and doctors can't stand the thought of doing nothing. What would change their minds?

Back From the Brink

Near-death experiences have been the domain of pseudoscience. But clinicians ignore them at their peril.

To Build a Better Vaccine

Waiting a decade or more for new vaccines may be a thing of the past, thanks to the revolution of rational vaccine design.

What Blockchain Could Do

Beneath the hype is a technology that could solve many logistical problems that plague medicine.

Something in Your Voice

New speech analysis technologies can help diagnose mental illness. But they also raise troubling questions.

Energy Crisis

Those who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome often face years of doubt from their medical providers. But now the physical hallmarks of the disease are coming into focus.

Rethinking the Perfect Organ

The critical shortage of organs isn’t going away. Revising the current guidelines about who should be a donor—and who should be a recipient—might save lives.

The Solid Tumor Barrier

New T cell therapies succeed with a narrow band of cancers. Can they be made to work for the rest of them, too?

Living Memory

How does the brain remember? As memory disorders become more common, the research race is on to determine how the process works, what can go wrong and how worn memories can be made whole again.

When Healers Get Hurt

For nurses and doctors, abuse from patients is just part of the job. But as attacks mount, hospitals are trying to defuse the tension.

The Gut Hypothesis

Could Parkinson’s disease, a brain disorder, have its origin somewhere else? A controversial theory is gaining ground.

Hear This

Some people are born deaf; others lose hearing because of injury or as they age. New approaches could open their ears.

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Dispatches

The Beloved Elucidator

Pathologist Husain Sattar is becoming an icon—and a meme—to a generation of medical students.

A Personal “Flybrary”

People with hard-to- treat cancer might get unlikely new allies: 400,000 genetically engineered fruit flies.

Women’s Work

A pioneer in protein structures also left a legacy for mothers in the sciences.

Who Needs to Know?

Addiction treatment comes with its own strict privacy rules. Perhaps it shouldn’t.

Worse Than Its Bite

A solo traveler is bitten by a rabid dog and must navigate her care abroad.

Facial Feminization

Photographer Elle Pérez documents the intimate lives of those in the LGBTQ community.

Passenger Hotspots

n: A run of mutations in a tumor genome that don’t offer any particular survival advantage.

Broken Hearted

An unusual syndrome connects grief and stress to cardiac damage. Discoveries about its physiology reveal a complex connection to the brain.

Where Is the Next HPV Vaccine?

At least 10% of cancers are probably caused by a viral infection. But researchers struggle to replicate the success they have had with cervical cancer.

Podcast: Medicine on the Mountain

The body can behave strangely at high altitudes. What can that teach researchers about life at sea level?

The Desperate Race for Halal Vaccines

Vaccine skepticism is a growing problem in the Muslim world, too. Making medicines without pork products is one obvious—but tricky—solution.

Google Translate Under the Microscope

The free online tool often takes the place of trained medical translators. How well is it doing?

The Fungal Frontier

The drug-resistant Candida auris has taken up residence in U.S. hospitals. What will it take to fight back?

Is the "Robot Surgeon" Worth It Yet?

Despite a massive investment by hospitals, the jury is still out on how these machines affect outcomes.

Saving Stark

Can the embattled reform law adapt to a newer model of health care?

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From Mass General

The Changing Landscape of Primary Care

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss a shortage of primary care physicians and how to address the problem.

A Safe and Controversial Place

Physician Mark Eisenberg discusses the furor over (and the desperate need for) safer injection sites.

Next-Generation Vaccines

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the revolution of rational vaccine design.

A Revolution in Cancer Treatment

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the promise of CAR T cell therapy for solid tumors.

Climate Change Meets an Aging Population

The most common victims of extreme weather events are older people. New research looks into how the health system fails them, and how it can be fixed.

Singular Exceptions

Should primary care physicians be trained to spot unusual, medically important cases?

Silent No More

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the need to end workplace violence in health care.

An Extra Pair of (A)Is

Machine intelligence takes a big step into the clinic, with a technology that helps identify patients with an elevated risk of breast cancer.

Doctoring on a Screen

Telemedicine made its first broadcast 50 years ago in an airport clinic.

Ending the AIDS Epidemic

Since the early 1980s, AIDS has killed more than 35 million people worldwide. But researchers are determined to find better treatments, cures and preventions that many finally put an end to the epidemic.

For Some Clots, It Takes a Village

Treatment of pulmonary embolisms may benefit from a team approach. But that model faces obstacles inside and outside the hospital.

Shining a Light on Depression

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris highlight the need for new approaches to treating depression.

A (Small) Cause of Big Pain

Neurologist Anne Louise Oaklander investigates a cause of chronic pain that is treatable without opioids.

Investing in Our Future

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the importance of research funding.

After the Storm

Hurricane Maria shut down a factory where intravenous fluid bags were made. Why has this roiled a nation’s hospital system?

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Charts & Data

How to Green a Hospital

Health care leaders look for ways to scale back an outsized carbon footprint.

The New Anatomy

Parts of the body are constantly being proposed or discovered. Where do they come from?

Anatomy of a Hashtag

Public health messaging online yields beautiful—but sometimes worrying—data.

The Village Without Memory

In France, a home for people with dementia is designed from the ground up.

To Choose Death

Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act crosses the 20-year mark.

In Passing

How does a hospital keep patient details from getting lost in the shuffle?

To Catch a Protein

The world of protein imaging undergoes a chilly revolution.

The Next Zika

Vaccines are most helpful before an epidemic hits. So which diseases should researchers prepare for next?

ResearchKit

A software platform from Apple is helping medical researchers collect health data from any iPhone user

White Coats

The standard garb of the physician comes with surprising risks and benefits.

Unsound the Alarm

Hundreds of alarms compete for a clinician's attention. Can less noise mean better care?

Babel in the ICU

Machines in an ICU can't speak to one another—but what if they could?

The Changes We've Seen

Proto looks at trends in health care during the last 10 years.

Born Too Soon

Despite steady declines over the past decade, the U.S. still has one of the highest preterm birthrates in the developed world.

An Outbreak Told in Genomes

Rapid genetic sequencing maps an Ebola outbreak in fine detail.

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