(n.); a cleansing medicine or preparation; (adj.) able to cleanse, especially a wound “Art begins in a wound, an imperfection—a wound inherent in the nature of life itself—and is an…
Virtual reality is the final frontier. How to talk to aliens. Do livestreaming apps change the news? Ellen Pao and the media and Silicon Valley and Twitter and sexism and…
Journalist Katy Butler discusses her memoir, Knocking on Heaven's Door: A Path to a Better Way of Death, why medicine and technology often cloud the larger issues of dying, and how we should contemplate the end of our lives.
You’re probably aware of the placebo effect—because you think it’s real medication, a sugar pill, for example, relieves your pain—but have you heard of its evil twin, the nocebo effect?…
The unpublished catalogue of fiction inspired by illness is limitless, composed every day, at every hour, in every hospital, clinic, hospice, and bedroom where the ill and injured and even the mildly indisposed attempt to make sense of our altered conditions.
In the fall of 2008 I was chatting with a woman I know about the upcoming presidential election. She was in her 60s, single, a funky dresser, world traveler, and…