On a busy summer evening, six patients were brought by EMS transport to the Emergency Department at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center for suspected overdose of crack cocaine, which, unbeknownst to the patients, had been mixed with fentanyl.

As the leaves fall and temperatures drop, people tend to spend more time indoors with others, which potentially increases the exposure to cold-causing viruses. At some point this season, most people will catch the common cold, a viral infection in the upper respiratory system characterized by coughing, sneezing, sore throat, and other symptoms.

As a 15-year-old high school pitcher, my fastball hissed into the catcher’s mitt at 80 on the radar gun. By the end of my sophomore season, the pitch was 10 miles per hour slower and missing its zip. When someone asks what happened, I usually tell them, “Do you remember Mark Prior?”

“Think globally, act locally” is a popular global health idea that encourages people to consider the health of the entire planet while taking actions in their own cities and communities. And it’s an idea that inspired a group of students in the Perelman School of Medicine to join with other medical schools in Philadelphia and start a group dedicated to the growing field of global surgery.

When I first ordered my at-home DNA testing kit, I was curious about my family’s ancestry – was the lavish rumor true that my Polish roots began with a bankrupted Hungarian royal?

When it comes to biology, fiction often predates reality, sometimes by centuries. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein epitomizes how much one novel has infiltrated science throughout time.

Why are some people’s nightmares other people’s joyrides? Thea Gallagher, PsyD, the clinic director at Penn’s Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, shares her thoughts.

ASMR: It’s hard to describe to those who don’t experience it. It’s like quiet TV static filling my brain, or a river of bubbly seltzer water rushing under my scalp and down my spine. ASMR videos have taken the Internet by storm, but the science behind the phenomenon and its benefits remains fuzzy.

Five oncology nurses at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) – most with less than a year of experience under their belts – listened closely as a panel of former patients and family members of patients told stories of their personal experiences on a cancer unit at HUP.

The first successful surgery under anesthesia occurred in the 1840s. Since then—more than 170 years later—people have been developing theories about what might be going on in the brain while a person is unconscious. And many mysteries remain.