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Spotlight
What kind of questions would you ask if you had access to the full DNA makeup of tens of thousands of people? Would you look for disease-causing mutations? Would you be curious about how modern humans are related? Read more
Menthol cigarettes contributed to 378,000 premature deaths in the United States between 1980 to 2018, according to a new University of Michigan study. Read more
Last fall, college students reported their highest levels of depression and anxiety of any prior semester, according to the University of Michigan Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey looking at mental health and service utilization among undergraduate and graduate college students. Read more
Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft might help decrease drunk driving accidents and deaths, but they also are associated with an increase in binge drinking, according to a new study. Read more
Epidemiologists in India say that there is only one likely explanation for the decrease in new cases: The virus is finding it harder to spread because a significant proportion of the population, at least in cities, already has been infected. The decline is not related to a lack of opportunities for transmission. Read more
Vaccine rollout in the United States has been undeniably slow. And while we wait, worrisome new coronavirus variants are emerging, heightening the urgency to control the pandemic. Some variants, including ones first identified in Brazil, South Africa and the United Kingdom, have mutations that help the coronavirus evade parts of the immune system, raising the specter that some people might face a second round of COVID-19. Read more
The aim is to encourage writers and showrunners to address the subject matter in their characters and storylines — without hitting viewers over the head with the message. Read more
Several states are loosening their coronavirus restrictions on restaurants and other businesses because of improved infection and hospitalization numbers but are moving cautiously, in part because of the more contagious variant taking hold. Read more
This winter, Covid-19 is turning out to be even more dangerous than epidemiologists and public health officials had feared—and not just because of the more contagious variants now making their way around the globe. Read more
The Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. are approximately 95% effective at preventing people from getting sick with symptoms, according to Pfizer and Moderna, the companies that produce them. But scientists are still studying whether vaccination prevents transmission to others. Read more