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Seven weeks after Jessica Scalia gave birth to her son James, the situation was both extremely common and completely dire. Her son was not sleeping, which meant she and her husband weren’t, either. “I was desperate,” she says. “I was willing to try anything.” So, at an ungodly hour on one particularly bad night, she made an impulse decision to rent a Snoo — a nearly $1,500 robotic bassinet that automatically soothes fussy babies with motion and white noise. (Judkis, 7/13)

Lenora Lewis hoped spinal surgery would relieve her chronic back pain. But when the mother of three from Lancaster awoke from the operation in 2013, she was paralyzed from the waist down, her feet numb but for the horrifying sensation of “a billion ants running through them.” What she didn’t know then was that her surgeon, Dr. Mukesh Misra, had been publicly accused by the Medical Board of California of operating on the wrong side of another patient’s brain. (Dolan and Christensen, 7/14)

When Halona Black lost her 49-year-old mother to breast cancer in 2006, she was sure she was destined to suffer the same fate. She had seen the data: Black women were 40 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than white women, especially those with close relatives who had been diagnosed with it. Ms. Black, then based in Florida, became determined to outwit her destiny, though she didn’t have much reliable information about how to do that. She stopped using store-bought deodorant, based on unproven claims that they can cause cancer, and started making her own with baking soda. “I attempted veganism for a while,” she said. “I know all of this sounds crazy, but I was desperate to have a long, happy life.” (Kerubo, 7/12)

If you’re interested in staying healthy as you age — and living longer — you might want to add a different set of muscles to your workout routine: your creative ones. Ongoing research suggests that creativity may be key to healthy aging. Studies show that participating in activities such as singing, theater performance and visual artistry could support the well-being of older adults, and that creativity, which is related to the personality trait of openness, can lead to greater longevity. When researchers talk about creativity, they aren’t limiting it to the arts. Author and Georgetown University psychiatrist Norman Rosenthal defines being creative as “having the ability to make unexpected connections, either to see commonplace things in new ways — or unusual things that escape the attention of others — and realize their importance.” (Fuchs, 7/12)

The byzantine world of pharmaceutical regulation has recently broken into the public consciousness, causing a bit of a panic. Aducanumab—the first new Alzheimer’s treatment in nearly two decades—was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on June 7 despite scant evidence of benefit, and against the nearly unanimous advice of the agency’s expert advisers. Op-eds called the decision, which could trigger billions of dollars in new government spending, a “false hope,” “bad medicine,” and “a new low.” (FDA officials have said that their decision was based on “rigorous science,” and that it reflects the willingness of people with Alzheimer’s and their families’ to accept a treatment that might help, despite “some degree of uncertainty.”) On Thursday, the FDA tried to clarify that the drug should be used only for patients with mild dementia; the next day, amid concerns about inappropriate interactions between the drugmaker and FDA officials, Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock called for her own agency to be investigated. (Mazer, 7/13)

But for Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel, the Covid vaccine is just the beginning. He’s long promised that if mRNA works, it will lead to a giant new industry capable of treating most everything from heart disease to cancer to rare genetic conditions. Moderna has drugs in trials for all three of these categories, and Bancel says his company can also become a dominant vaccine maker, developing shots for emerging viruses such as Nipah and Zika, as well as better-known, hard-to-target pathogens such as HIV. (Langreth, 7/14)

The Exxon clerk never got a good look at the assailants who robbed him at gunpoint in Fairfax County, so investigators hoped to bolster their case with the smallest of clues: the minuscule number of skin cells one perpetrator left behind when he grabbed the victim’s shirt. Crime labs that have long pulled DNA from blood or semen have been pushing the frontiers of forensics by teasing genetic material from ever tinier and more challenging samples, such as sneaker sweat. But this time, the Virginia crime lab could not make a match because of a ubiquitous problem: DNA from too many people was on the shirt. (Jouvenal, 7/13)

During D.C.'s annual Pride weekend, Katie Bruckmann and a friend joined the large crowds Saturday evening on U Street NW. Colorful decorations celebrating the LGBT+ community dotted the road and sidewalks, and shops and restaurants welcomed festive patrons who stayed home last year because of the coronavirus. Bruckmann is a wheelchair user and part of at least 12 percent of D.C. adult residents with a mobility disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During Pride, she noticed some restaurants blocking curb cuts to create more space for outdoor dining, making it harder for her to get back on the sidewalk when she needed. When she was on the sidewalk, some of the already narrow walkways were congested with large signs. (Mayes and Aguilar, 7/13)

For nearly 24 years, the father crossed China by motorbike. With banners displaying photos of a 2-year-old boy flying from the back of his bike, he traveled more than 300,000 miles, all in pursuit of one goal: finding his kidnapped son. This week, Guo Gangtang’s search finally ended. He and his wife were reunited with their son, now 26, after the police matched their DNA, according to China’s public security ministry. ... Child abduction is a longstanding problem in China. Historically, child abduction was linked, at least in part, to China’s one-child policy. At the height of the policy’s enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s, some couples resorted to buying young boys on the black market to ensure they would have a son, according to research by scholars at Xiamen University in Fujian Province. Chinese society has traditionally favored sons. (Wang and Dong, 7/14)