The Particle That Doesn't Care About You
Francis Halzen just won the Nobel Prize for catching a particle that passes through your body by the trillion and has never once touched you. He’d like you to stop worrying about it.
The surgeon was 35 miles away, and the patient was fine with that
A Florida surgeon operated on a prostate-cancer patient 35 miles away in the first documented U.S. hospital-to-hospital robotic telesurgery. Leblanc on what it means, and why the hedged press release is the best part.
A Frankenstein baby weighing 4 pounds, making for a frightful Halloween in the NICU,
Four hospitals, one Monday, dozens of premature babies in hand-knit pumpkins, pizza slices and Beanie Babies. Phillip Leblanc on why the NICU Halloween photo is medicine’s most underrated tradition.
Las Vegas finally gets a children’s hospital, and a $150 million name on the door
The 828,600-square-foot hospital will be built on a 33-acre campus and open with 180 beds, with enough space to expand to 228, according to the health system. It will provide neonatal care, pediatric and cardiac intensive care, emergency and trauma care, orthopedics, cancer and bone marrow transplant services, behavioral health and advanced medical and surgical care for children.
You Can See Everything: A Masterpiece in Cognitive Dissonance
Perhaps I’d think differently if not for the kids. It’s hard not to see two children, born right before an eleven-year prison sentence, as a Hail Mary for a lighter one. That intentional decision is the part of Holmes I can’t get past. Yes, an abusive relationship can push you into things you’d never choose. But does it let you forfeit your responsibility as a mother? Her protection of her own children seems to go about as far as her protection of her patients did. I’d love to see someone study what happens to maternal instinct under duress. Until then, must I conclude that she lacks the empathy of a mother?
Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos: The Patients Were the Real Victims
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors, not patients. But tens of thousands of people received unreliable Theranos results. Ahead of Nathan Fielder's You Can See Everything, here's what happened to patients and what a real diagnostic test has to prove.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honors the Discovery of Light-Gated Ion Channels and the Rise of Optogenetics
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for the work behind optogenetics, which uses light to switch nerve cells on and off. The method has changed brain research, but its use as a treatment in people has barely begun.
Pauly Shore Started a Sweat Cult on Martin Street
Pauly Shore spent a day pulling Nashville strangers off Martin Street and into a wood-fired sauna, then a cold plunge. Here’s what happened, and what the science says about sweating it out.
Megan Moroney Brings an Acoustic "Beautiful Things" to Patients at St. Jude
Country singer Megan Moroney visited St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to perform for patients and families around the release of her album Cloud 9. She also sat down with Faith, a patient being treated for bone cancer, who said it felt like talking to an old friend.