People have been having fun with nitrous oxide—often in the name of science—since its discovery more than 240 years ago.

Twelve-step programs treat alcohol and drugs according to the same principles. But heroin changes the way the brain works. If there’s a medication that treats heroin addiction, why aren’t we using it?

Living with hypersomnia, a disorder marked by sleeping dozens of hours straight and still never feeling truly awake.

Designing technology that allows ALS patients to communicate.

How mental illness reshapes a marriage.

Sheikh Humarr Khan was a globally renowned expert in tropical diseases, and the hero who ran Sierra Leone’s worst Ebola ward. So why, when he finally fell ill, was he denied the extraordinary treatments that could have saved him?

The dilemma of providing quality health care for undocumented immigrants, and how one city is attempting to solve it.

Designing your own narcotics online isn’t just easy—it can be legal, too.

How the author writes best-selling non-fiction books without the ability to leave her house.

Antibiotics made modern farming possible. But as “societal drugs,” their use by any individual affects us all.

Opening up about medical mistakes.

75 years ago, Marguerite Perey unearthed an element while working as a technician in Marie Curie’s lab. Her achievement came at a great cost.

Why the boom in scientific progress stalled.

Why do people with dementia become lost?

Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds, a year after his mentally ill son stabbed him multple times before committing suicide.

Vivien Thomas was paid a janitor’s wage, never went to college, and still became a legend in the field of heart surgery.

The author of The Hot Zone on how geneticists can help contain the current outbreak.

On what you do and don’t learn in medical school.

Life after losing your memory at 22.

What it’s like to be struck by lightning.

“When I woke up hours later, I really believed I had been in those mountains hiking — that it was not a dream. And I really had lost my voice. I had lost my words. I was unable to say, ‘I am trapped in my brain’ or, ‘My memories are mixing with imagination.’”

Rejecting the “American immortal” mentality.

When animals infect us.

Meet the people decomposing on a body farm.

On fathers, mothers, and doctors.