Daily Disinfecting Won’t Weaken Kids’ Immune Systems, Experts Say

Daily Disinfecting Won’t Weaken Kids’ Immune Systems, Experts Say

Kids' immune systems come into contact with so many antigens every day that extra cleaning and disinfecting won't harm them, experts say.

(Photo credit: © Юрий Красильников/Adobe)

Cleaning has taken on a whole new meaning in Frank Mosco's household during the COVID-19 pandemic. There's a protocol for everything he and his two teenage daughters do.

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Susan Kreimer
Susan Kreimer is a New York-based freelance journalist who has followed the landscape of health care since the late 1990s, initially as a staff reporter for major daily newspapers. She writes about breakthrough studies, personal health, and the business of clinical practice. Raised in the Chicago area, she holds a B.A. in Journalism/Mass Communication and French, with minors in German and Russian, from the University of Iowa and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
A vaccine for ovarian cancer is now in development

Theupcoming vaccine is changing the way we look at treating one of the country’s deadliest cancers.

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Last week, researchers at the University of Oxford announced that they have received funding to create a brand new way of preventing ovarian cancer: A vaccine. The vaccine, known as OvarianVax, will teach the immune system to recognize and destroy mutated cells—one of the earliest indicators of ovarian cancer.


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Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.

How sharing, hearing, and remembering positive stories can help shape our brains for the better

Across cultures and through millennia, human beings have always told stories. Whether it’s a group of boy scouts around a campfire sharing ghost stories or the paleolithic Cro-Magnons etching pictures of bison on cave walls, researchers believe that storytelling has been universal to human beings since the development of language.

But storytelling was more than just a way for our ancestors to pass the time. Researchers believe that storytelling served an important evolutionary purpose, helping humans learn empathy, share important information (such as where predators were or what berries were safe to eat), as well as strengthen social bonds. Quite literally, storytelling has made it possible for the human race to survive.

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Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.