Health & Safety

3 years after pandemic school closings, how were kids and parents affected?

5:11am March 14, 2023

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer talks to Anya Kamenetz, former NPR education reporter and author of The Stolen Year, about the COVID pandemic's impact on students and teachers.

Image shows two men shaking hands at partnership announcement

Health & Safety

Novant Health, YMCA of Northwest North Carolina expand partnership

5:08pm March 13, 2023

by Paul Garber

Novant Health and the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina have formed a strategic partnership to expand services in underserved and rural areas.

Beautiful white cat, breed Siberian Neva Masquerade in a plastic collar

A veterinarian says pets have a lot to teach us about love and grief

4:53pm March 13, 2023

by Dave Davies

Karen Fine says "I feel like I learn from my patients all the time. ... They really have skills and senses that we don't." Her new memoir is The Other Family Doctor.

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Art school students in Mumbai finish up a painting of Indian actors N.T. Rama Rao Jr. (left) and Ram Charan of the movie RRR, whose dance song "Naatu Naatu" became the first song from an Indian film to win an Oscar.

The Oscar for 'Naatu Naatu' fans the impossible dreams of India's musicians

4:52pm March 13, 2023

by Kamala Thiagarajan

A song from the blockbuster Indian film RRR won the Oscar for best song and is now the talk of India's music biz. But will it lift other musicians to — well, not fame but at least financial security?

What went wrong with Britain's National Health Service

4:36pm March 13, 2023

by Philip Reeves

Junior doctors in Britain's National Health Service are striking, the latest in a wave of health worker protests — fueling debate about the future of Britain's system of free universal health care.

Can cuddling or kissing a pet put you at risk of contracting an unknown virus? Can people pass a virus to pets? Those are questions that pet owners ponder. And if Centu (left) and Ruby (right) could talk, they'd probably ask as well.

Can you catch a hidden virus from a dog kiss or a cat cuddle?

12:47pm March 13, 2023

by Michaeleen Doucleff

What's the risk of contracting a virus from your Fido or Kitty? It's not a frivolous question, as one cat-owning virologist explains. And there's another question: Can you give a virus to your pet?

Miseducated: A Series on Teen Sexual Health

Health & Safety

Miseducated: The Gap

9:12am March 13, 2023

by Ezekiel Greer, Genevieve Amigone, Kendall McCluney

The North Carolina Healthy Youth Act of 2009 is still at the center of sex education curriculums across the state. The law lays out what middle and high school students should be learning in the classroom, but it has LGBTQ+ feeling left out of the conversation.

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Health & Safety

Future of the COVID pandemic: Scientists say there is still a lot to learn

7:20am March 13, 2023

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with immunologist Akiko Iwasaki about the future of COVID research as the pandemic enters its fourth year.

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Millions of people take statins to reduce the risk of heart attacks, but for some the medication causes debilitating side effects.

Got muscle pain from statins? A cholesterol-lowering alternative might be for you

5:06am March 13, 2023

by Allison Aubrey

New evidence shows bempedoic acid works to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart attacks, without the muscle pain that some people suffer when taking statins.

Ukraine's farmlands are affected by the toxic remnants of war

5:14pm March 12, 2023

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Joseph Hupy, a professor at Purdue University, about soil toxicity in Ukraine farmlands as a result of the war.