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Getting to this point has been a long journey, but one that has benefited from game-changing discoveries. Here’s how we got here. (Park, 5/3)

The final episode of our three-part series takes listeners inside the failed federal response to COVID-19 and explores the massive volunteer effort to collect data about the disease. (4/29)

With the era of government-mandated masking at restaurants, grocery stores and schools long gone, hospitals and doctors’ offices were the last to carry the most visible reminders of the three-year-old pandemic. But regulators and some infectious-disease specialists have concluded that universal masking is no longer essential in medical settings, prompting one of the starkest returns to pre-covid life. (Nirappil, 5/1)

People living in East Garfield Park near Rush lived 66 years, on average — 14 years less than residents of the Loop a few miles away. (McFarling, 5/2)

There are two ways of taking pills—two and only two. You pinch the pill between your thumb and index finger, pick it up, and place it on your tongue. You take a drink of water. This method is the tweezers. Or else: You place the pill in your palm and launch it toward your mouth, as if your teeth were battlements and your arm a siege machine. Don’t bother with the water. This method is the catapult. (Engber, 5/1)

If you want to know how the world is preparing for the next global pandemic look at Rolaing, a Cambodian village located on a tributary of the Mekong River. For a few days in February this isolated spot became a hive of public health activity after an 11-year-old girl died of H5N1, the most virulent strain of bird flu — the country’s first fatality from the disease since 2014. (Fay Cortez and Ring, 5/2)

Those beliefs, it turns out, were so mid-2010s. In a 2019 poll, two-thirds of U.S. young adults said they had become increasingly supportive of transgender rights over the last five years. Today’s teens not only support transgender rights, but arrive home from school excited when one of their friends comes out as trans. But how much have things really changed? When I started writing a new book about generational differences (Generations), I knew it would be important to revisit Gen Z’s views around gender, including nonbinary and transgender identities. (Twenge, 5/1)

A compostable salad bowl seems like an Earth-friendly way to enjoy a healthy lunch. But the toxic chemicals used in containers like molded-fiber salad bowls, sandwich wrappers, and French fry pouches may be leaching into food despite efforts to make those materials safer, according to the results of a study published in March in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. (Trang, 5/2)

Taking care of toenails becomes more important as we age. If you cannot care for your toenails properly, “it can lead to problems down the line,” says Michael Coyer, a foot and ankle surgeon in Orange County, Calif. Neglect, for instance, can lead to painful ingrown toenails and damage to too-long toenails that have been bumping up against the front of your shoes. There are solutions. These expert strategies can help keep problems at bay. (Wadyka, 5/1)