Health

‘Preparing a Thanksgiving meal is like playing Russian roulette’

You risk getting sick if you’ve already purchased a Thanksgiving turkey contaminated by salmonella but haven’t started to thaw the frozen bird, said Darin Detwiler, an assistant teaching professor of food policy at Northeastern. “There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong.”

by Sophia Fox-Sowell November 20, 2018

Tracking an epidemic requires computer models. But what if those models are wrong?

Researchers at Northeastern have found that one of the basic assumptions used in disease modeling simply isn’t realistic. Now they’re looking at how epidemics travel through various layers of a population to find a better way to track a disease.

by Laura Castañón November 19, 2018

The CDC confirmed that a mysterious disease is paralyzing children across the US, but where does it come from?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released an official case count for a rare neurological disease being reported across the country. The definitive cause and transmission pattern of this disease are still unknown, which makes the possibility of modeling the disease uncertain, said Ana Pastore y Piontti, an associate research scientist at Northeastern.

by Aria Bracci October 18, 2018

Get a free flu shot at this health fair

Northeastern students, faculty, and staff can receive free flu shots and health screenings at a health fair on Wednesday at the university’s Boston campus. “We want people to be more passionate about taking care of themselves and their health,” said Serena Kang, a third-year pharmacy student who helped to organize the event.

by Greg St. Martin October 9, 2018

These patients aren’t real. Why are they giving birth?

Fake people, known as human patient simulators, populate a suite of labs on Northeastern’s Boston campus to help students prepare to take care of real people with real ailments. “They can sweat. They can urinate. They can seize,” said Jamie Musler, who directs the labs. They can also give birth.

by Aria Bracci October 9, 2018

Researchers receive $13.2 million to continue study of health challenges facing women, children in Puerto Rico

For the past 10 years, Northeastern-led research teams have been studying how the environment affects the health and development of mothers, infants, and children living on the island of Puerto Rico. Now, the researchers have received a $13.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue their study of the effects of environmental contaminants on the well-being of people in the region.

by Aria Bracci October 5, 2018

This neuroscientist wants to change how we diagnose and treat mental illness

Imagine that a doctor could know which treatment would best help a patient with depression, anxiety, or some other mental illness by taking a picture of their brains, not unlike the way people get an X-ray for a broken bone. That will be in the future of clinical psychiatric practice, said Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, who started this semester as a psychology professor at Northeastern.

by Christine Regan Davi - contributor September 19, 2018

The wheels on this bus go round and round, but only some make you go

Northeastern law graduate Seema Brodie co-owns BikeBus, a company that brings cycling classes to the open road. We tried out a class and can say with certainty that biking the Pike is made easier with a little motivation and some pump-up jams.

by Emily Arntsen September 11, 2018

I meditated on National Relaxation Day. Here’s how that went.

Wednesday was National Relaxation Day. I typed it into my phone calendar that morning, with alarms 60 and 30 minutes in advance, to remind me that I had been assigned to relax from 2 to 2:30 p.m., after which I would write this story on deadline.

by Ian Thomsen August 16, 2018

How long is an Ebola survivor contagious? One case is causing scientists to rethink the answer.

A new report shows that a Liberian woman who survived a case of Ebola in 2014 may have infected her family a year later. The finding could complicate things for scientists such as Northeastern professor Alessandro Vespignani, who study how diseases spread during an outbreak.

by Laura Castañón - contributor August 13, 2018