The flu is hardly a new or unusual disease. So why does it still manage to kill thousands of Americans every year, including young and otherwise healthy people?
Category Archives: A Matter of Life or Death
What You Need To Know As The First COVID-19 Vaccine Heads Your Way
Skim through these questions and answers about the new COVID vaccine.
Woman describes what it was like to be the only survivor of a flight obliterated by a thunderstorm
Juliane Koepcke recounts surviving a plane crash and eleven days alone in the Peruvian jungle decades earlier.
Man shelters 300 dogs from Hurricane Delta in Mexico home
Ricardo Pimentel opened his home to about 300 dogs who, otherwise, may not have survived Hurricane Delta last month.
A Newly Digitized Logbook Documents Life and Death on a Slave Trading Ship
A slave ship’s logbook was recently found and sent to Georgetown University for preservation. Its record of enslaved lives lost during the ship’s voyage is both tragic and telling.
Digital technology offers new ways to teach lessons from the Holocaust
Read this article to learn about why all students should know what the Holocaust was and when it occurred to ensure events like these never happen again.
Five things coronavirus can teach us about life and death
Read this article to learn the five things you may learn from the Coronavirus pandemic.
What the rest of us can learn from the Wild Boars soccer team about the importance of survival, coping skills
Survival experts discuss what the Thai soccer team that was trapped in a cave did right to get through the two weeks before they were rescued.
The Next Mass Extinction Might Be About Survival of the Laziest
Because humans have a relatively low metabolism, they might survive longer than other species. This article explains more about the theory.
You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus
Many previously deadly diseases have been reined in by vaccines that we now take for granted. But the development of a vaccine can take a year or more.
How weaponizing the body’s immune system can deliver a cure for cancer
A cancer diagnosis was once a death sentence, but researchers have developed a whole toolbox of treatments and preventative measures in recent decades. Learn about one of the most promising approaches to stopping this deadly disease.
New ways to teach the Holocaust
Learn about the new VR format students may begin using to learn about the Holocaust.
Anne Frank, and America’s dangerously shallow understanding of the Holocaust
The horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II may be familiar to most of us, but one writer argues that we don’t really understand them.
Modern Humans Retain Caveman’s Survival Instincts
Snakes and spiders top lists of things people fear, even though accidents and diseases are deadlier. The reason why harks back to the experiences of our early ancestors.
The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt
Often mixed with the relief and joy of surviving a catastrophe or war is guilt. Survivors may feel that they didn’t do enough to save others or that they bear responsibility for preventable deaths.
Cancer Drug Proves to Be Effective Against Multiple Tumors
People sometimes talk about a cure for cancer as if it’s a nearly impossible goal. But this deadly disease takes many forms, and cures for some of those forms have already been developed.
A Decade Later, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Has Left an Abyssal Wasteland
Discover the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill years later and what these adverse effects have wrought on the local marine life.
Irish Potato Famine
Read about the great Irish Potato Famine, how it affected the Irish people, and how it contributed to a mass migration to the U.S.
WHO declares Ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency
Learn about the deadly outbreak of Ebola in Africa, how it spreads quickly, and why it is so difficult to contain.
Maternal deaths fall across globe but rise in U.S., doubling in Texas
Giving birth used to be one of the most dangerous things a woman could do, until medical advancements about a century ago improved outcomes. So why might the United States—and one state in particular— be sliding backward in this key statistic?