19thcentury

Example of a coffin plate excavated from the cemetery. Credit: Gowland et al, PLOS ONE, 2023. CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Skeletal remains preserve direct evidence of the health issues faced by children born into poverty and forced into labor in 19th century England, according to a study published May 17, 2023, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rebecca Gowland of Durham University and…

Tanya Lewis: Hi, and welcome to Your Health, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series! Josh Fischman: On this show, we highlight the latest vital health news, discoveries that affect your body and your mind.   Every episode, we dive into one topic. We discuss diseases, treatments, and some controversies.  Lewis: And we demystify the medical research in ways you can use to stay healthy.  I’m Tanya Lewis. Fischman: I’m Josh Fischman. Lewis: We’re Scientific American’s senior health editors.  Fishman: On the show…

On Friday the Supreme Court issued a stay on a lower court ruling that revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, one of two medications that have been prescribed together for decades in the U.S. to end unwanted pregnancies. The ruling temporarily preserves access to a safe and effective abortion medication while the case goes through appeals. Two weeks earlier Texas district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had ruled in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of…

Portrait of De Lacy Evans and his wife (1870). Credit: State Library Victoria (This article contains references to anti-trans, colonial and institutional violence, and includes information about an Aboriginal person who died in the early 20th century.) Anti-transgender hatred is on the rise. Driven by pseudoscience and backed by…

If you’ve watched a certain TV documentary series recently, you may have encountered the notion that belonging to royalty is a little like movie stardom – and that both are conditions you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. The grandmother of all beleaguered royals-as-celebs – before Diana, Princess of Wales, before Princess Grace, before you know who off Netflix – was Elisabeth of Austria (1837-98). Fondly known as Sissi, or Sisi, she was the subject of a reverential cult of glamour in her day, and in the 1950s was played…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Sen. Lindsey Graham has proposed a national U.S. abortion ban barring the procedure after 15 weeks. This push to restrict abortion access across the country follows a rash of new state laws passed by Republicans after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. …