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Genetic material pulled from 13 teeth found in a grave in Lithuania revealed infectious diseases that felled the French emperor’s troops as they withdrew from Russia. (Kolata, 10/24)

Miriam Merad’s fascination with macrophages began when she looked into the lungs of a cancer patient she’d just lost during her residency. He developed a rare allergy to the chemotherapy, and died rapidly. The case still haunts her. “When you have a patient dying of a treatment that you gave, you never forget that,” she said. “It’s very present.” (Chen, 10/28)

As a new Ph.D. student in 2011, Steve Ramirez and his mentor performed a groundbreaking experiment in the field of memory manipulation. They placed a mouse in a small distinctive box and administered a mild electrical shock to its feet. When the rodent was placed in the box a second time, it froze up — anticipating another shock. From there, the young neuroscientists placed the mouse in a different box, one where nothing bad had happened. (Talpos, 10/29)

Across the country, wildfire fighters work for weeks at a time in poisonous smoke. The government says they are protected. We tested the air at one fire to find out why they are still dying. (Dreier and Murray, 10/28)

A Somali hospital ward packed with gasping children shows how war, climate and mistrust of vaccines is fueling the disease’s return. (Nolen, 10/27)