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Doctors relied on cholesterol levels to assess heart disease risk for decades. In 2025, accumulated research led to more screening for C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, as a better predictor of heart attacks and strokes, a professor of family and community medicine explains:

The Conversation

How C-reactive protein outpaced ‘bad’ cholesterol as leading heart disease risk marker

C-reactive protein – a marker of inflammation – is as easily measured with blood work in a doctor’s office as cholesterol.

I study rat nests − here’s why rodents make great archivists

The Conversation

I study rat nests − here’s why rodents make great archivists

An archaeologist reveals what she learned from sifting through a 200-year-old rat nest recovered from a historic Philadelphia home.

Local democracy is holding strong, but rural communities are falling behind, new survey of Michigan officials shows

The Conversation

Local democracy is holding strong, but rural communities are falling behind, new survey of Michigan officials shows

Officials from 70% of Michigan’s 1,856 cities, villages, counties and townships completed the survey.

ByteDance’s agreement to sell TikTok puts app’s algorithm in the spotlight – a social media expert explains how the ‘For You’ page works and what’s to come

The Conversation

ByteDance’s agreement to sell TikTok puts app’s algorithm in the spotlight – a social media expert explains how the ‘For You’ page works and what’s to come

With a change of ownership in the works, TikTok’s algorithm – the secret sauce of its success – is going to be reset for US users. What diffe...

How to reduce gift-giving stress with your kids – a child psychologist’s tips for making magic and avoiding tears

The Conversation

How to reduce gift-giving stress with your kids – a child psychologist’s tips for making magic and avoiding tears

Depending on family circumstances and a child’s personality type, gift giving runs the gamut of fun to terrifying. But the most important lesson ...

From truce in the trenches to cocktails at the consulate: How Christmas diplomacy seeks to exploit seasonal goodwill

The Conversation

From truce in the trenches to cocktails at the consulate: How Christmas diplomacy seeks to exploit seasonal goodwill

World leaders like to talk up peace at Christmastime. But alongside the tales of seasonal breaks in fighting are incidents of adversaries taking ad...

As DOJ begins to release Epstein files, his many victims deserve more attention than the powerful men in his ‘client list’

The Conversation

As DOJ begins to release Epstein files, his many victims deserve more attention than the powerful men in his ‘client list’

Powerful men connected to Jeffrey Epstein are named, dissected and speculated about. The survivors, unless they work hard to step forward, remain a...

Karoline Leavitt’s White House briefings aren’t just spin – they reflect what George Orwell warned about: lies divorced from reality, and the use of “doublethink” to have a word (like “transparency”) mean just the opposite. A historian who studies Orwell explains: Thread ⬇️

The Conversation

Karoline Leavitt’s White House briefing doublethink is straight out of Orwell’s ‘1984’

A historian analyzes how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s claims about her boss and his administration are ‘doublespeak’ straig...

5 objects found in forgotten steamer trunks tell the story of early Filipino migrants in America (thread) ⬇️