Madeleine Sweet’s fentanyl addiction started with an unexpected freebie. Already addicted to opioids and grappling with the sense that her life was going bottom-up as her student debts mounted, she was finding it difficult to access enough oxycodone and other opiates to satisfy her dependency.So, in 2016, Sweet gravitated to the dark web. That’s where sellers were hawking designer drugs crafted to hijack the brain’s reward system, including mass-produced fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 tim ...read more

Depression can sometimes be portrayed as a deep but passing sadness. However, the National Institute of Mental Health warns that although depression is a common mood disorder, it is a serious one that can cause severe symptoms that impact every part of life.Many people may have seen a loved one show symptoms of depression. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 5 percent of the global population experiences depression, which is about 280 million people.Medications and other therapies ...read more

The Bavarian city of Ingolstadt was no stranger to secrets. It wasn’t in May 1776, anyway, when it became the birthplace of the Illuminati. Shrouded in shadows, this secret society convened for close to 10 years, circulating its ideas without censure or condemnation. It wasn’t until 1785 that its activities were banned, as an active conspiracy against the state of Bavaria.The Illuminati and other secret societies inspire our imaginations, both for better and for worse. There’s something ab ...read more

Each day, thousands of animals face one of the most deadly predators in America — a road.More than 4 million miles of public roads across the U.S. provide vital links for commerce, services, and travel, but they’re treacherous barriers for wildlife seeking food, water, and mates. Exposed and unsure about the noisy, unfamiliar terrain presented by an open road, an animal that hesitates or misjudges the speed of an approaching vehicle risks fatal consequences.Unfortunately, those encounters ar ...read more

“It’s my feet,” the 50-year-old man said.Medium height, hair tousled, Harold looked as if he had thrown on his sweatpants and loose flannel shirt in a moment of concern. Still, he appeared more intrigued than anything.My low-key shift in the emergency department’s walk-in section had brought the usual array of back pain, ear infections, sore joints, and lacerations. This sounded no different.“Both feet,” he continued. “I woke up this morning, and they were numb and tingly. Here.” ...read more

Lakes, streams and aquifers across North America are crawling with salamanders of all shapes and sizes. For most people, though, finding a 2-foot-long amphibian in the eastern United States might sound like a tall tale. But giant salamanders are more common than you might think. The eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), which can grow up to 29 inches long, is the largest salamander native to North America, and the fourth largest in the world. And unlike most salamanders, it spends ...read more

When University of Chicago physiologist Nathaniel Kleitman told fellow faculty members he was seeking a locale for a month-long sleep experiment — someplace as isolated from the rhythms of day and night as the Arctic in summer — a colleague in the geology department said he knew just the spot.Between 10 million and 15 million years ago, in what is now south‑central Kentucky, trickles of groundwater began probing the cracks in a fossil seabed. Over the eons, the pockets grew and grew until ...read more

There’s a new pterosaur in town. A museum curator happened upon a winged carnivorous reptile fossil while checking on another specimen in an area available to amateur fossil hunters. Researchers characterize it as a unique species in Scientific Reports.Finding the New Pterosaur FossilsKronosaurus Korner museum curator Kevin Petersen was visiting a western Queensland, Australia site available to the public with a permit from the Richmond, Australia marine fossil museum. He was checking on a fos ...read more

Biologist and bioengineer Donald E. Ingber doesn’t have time to sleep. As the founding director of The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, finding time outside of work hasn’t gotten easier with age. At 67, his morning still starts at 5 a.m., running through a pile of emails that seems to grow larger by the day.By lunch, he’s already revised the budget for a crucial government grant and met with postdoctoral fellows regarding work on various research ...read more

When the first astronauts returned from space in the 1960s, their health assessments revealed something unexpected. Besides significant loss of muscle and bone mass, they were anemic — meaning their blood contained a lower-than-normal amount of red blood cells. This phenomenon, known as “space anemia,” seems to be an unavoidable part of space travel. It happens to everyone who ventures beyond Earth’s atmosphere. But decades later, scientists still don’t fully understand the process.Wha ...read more