Articles

I am a contributing editor at Scientific American and write the Brain Waves blog for Psychology Today (you can find those posts here). My work has also appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, Vogue and many other publications. Earlier in my career, I was on staff at Newsweek, and People, among other places and I’ve included a few of my old favorites from those days.

How the Pandemic Has Shaped Babies’ Development

The first two years of life are a time of astonishing brain growth. What has that meant for the toddlers who have only known a world with COVID?   Two years is a long time in any child’s life. It’s half of high school and most of middle school, time…

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Epstein-Barr Virus Found to Trigger Multiple Sclerosis

A connection between the human herpesvirus Epstein-Barr and multiple sclerosis (MS) has long been suspected but has been difficult to prove. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the primary cause of mononucleosis and is so common that 95 percent of adults carry it. Unlike Epstein-Barr, MS, a devastating demyelinating disease of the…

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How Pandemic Life Mimicked Pioneer Times

In the spring of 2020, faced with a deadly pandemic and instructions to stay at home, a remarkable number of Americans began baking bread. They planted vegetable gardens. They took up DIY home repair. They sat down for dinner with the same few family members—every single night. For anyone who…

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Making Eye Contact Signals a New Turn in a Conversation

What is found in a good conversation? It is certainly correct to say words—the more engagingly put, the better. But conversation also includes “eyes, smiles, the silences between the words,” as the Swedish author Annika Thor wrote. It is when those elements hum along together that we feel most deeply…

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The Stuttering Mind

Once blamed on personalities or parents, this speech disorder originates from neurological wiring and genes. New findings are pointing to new treatments.

Lee Reeves always wanted to be a veterinarian. When he was in high school in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, he went to an animal hospital near his house on a busy Saturday morning to apply for a job. The receptionist said the doctor was too busy to talk. But Reeves…

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The pandemic tested our friendships. Which ones will survive?

Back at the very beginning of the pandemic, when no one had cancelled anything yet but we were eyeing the headlines with a growing dread, I noticed a detail buried in the news here in New York. Our second case had just been reported. Unlike the first (a health care…

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