Want to improve your health on a truly deep level? The practice of yoga—including pranayama (breath control) and meditation—has been proven to improve the function of the entire nervous system, which controls all of your internal functions and physical movements. Yoga exerts this power by calming down the two dueling parts of the nervous system: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The first is famous for the “fight-or-flight” response, which causes the body to spring into action and prepare for physical and mental activity. The second causes the “rest-and-digest” response, a general slowdown in the body’s functions in order to conserve energy. Advertisement These two sides originate in two different locations within the central nervous system. Parasympathetic nerves emerge in the brain and brainstem, and sympathetic nerves arise from the spinal cord. The most powerful, natural way to modulate both of these is through respiration—pranayama, or breathing, in other words. Read More: Why Do I Keep Having Recurring Dreams? Yoga imparts a calming effect because it basically undoes the sympathetic nervous system’s quick, involuntary response to danger or stressful situations. A regular yoga practice has been shown to improve digestion; strengthen the immune system; and reduce the risk of hypertension, asthma, and stress-induced psychological disorders like anxiety. It does this, practitioners have long theorized, through a unique blend of science and spirituality.

If the neurologist Dr. Daniel Lesley sees 10 patients a day, at least half ask him the same question: Are the brain lapses they’re experiencing a normal part of aging? Or should they be worried? “People have an absolute terror of losing their memory and thinking they're losing themselves,” says Lesley, who works at Remo Health, a virtual dementia care company. “They don't know what’s normal, what's potentially a sign of something bad, and what's reversible.” Advertisement Just like every other organ in the body, the brain changes as you get older. Occasional, subtle memory problems—like not remembering where you parked at Costco—are usually no big deal. “Part of normal aging is paying less attention to details, and more attention to patterns and dynamics," Lesley says. “It may also become more difficult to access things quickly,” like names and certain words. When sporadic trouble becomes a regular occurrence, however, and other memory issues pop up—like repeating questions or missing appointments—it’s time for an evaluation. If you’re not sure, ask a spouse, friend, or adult child, suggests Dr. Zaldy S. Tan, director of the memory and healthy aging program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Have a conversation: ‘Have you noticed me repeating anything or asking the same questions? Have you noticed me misplacing things more often?’ Because we’re not necessarily the best judge of our memory—we don’t remember what we forget,” he says.

Many have grown to embrace the convenience of telehealth brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But now researchers have found that taking your doctor’s appointments from the couch could have another upside: it’s good for the environment. A new study, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Managed Care on April 22, has found the use of telemedicine could have an impact in reducing carbon emissions. The findings showed that telehealth decreased the number of cars on the road in the U.S., reducing monthly carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of up to 130,000 gas-powered cars. Advertisement Researchers quantified nearly 1.5 million telemedicine visits in urban and rural areas between April 1 and June 30, 2023 and estimated that anywhere between 741,000 to 1.35 million of those visits were substitutes for in-person visits. Using those calculations, they determined that telemedicine use cut CO2 emissions by a range of roughly 23,500 and 52,500 tons each month during the time studied—equivalent to the emissions produced by 61,000 to 130,000 gas powered vehicles. “The health care sector contributes significantly to the global carbon footprint,” Dr. A. Mark Fendrick, the study’s co-senior author and professor of medicine and director of Center for Value-Based Insurance Design at the University of Michigan, said in a press release. The U.S. health system currently contributes almost 9% of the country’s emissions, while transportation accounts for about 29%. “Our findings suggest that the environmental impact of medical care delivery can be reduced when lower-carbon options, such as telemedicine, are substituted for other services that produce more emissions.” The health care system has not shied away from the need to lower its carbon footprint. Around the world, some clinics are reconsidering what items can be reused or recycled, as well as beginning to phase out an anesthetic known as desflurane, one bottle of which is equivalent to driving a gas car 2,200 miles.. Some limitations remain, however. The researchers of the new study say that, though the participants had sociodemographic characteristics that were similar to those of U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the findings may not represent the broader population or account for regional variations, such as seasonal trends or internet access. Telemedicine use has also fallen since the end of the COVID pandemic, which could have led them to overestimate the true amount of averted emissions in the future. All the same, the findings could help sway policies, researchers say, as Congress continues to debate the extension of pandemic-era flexibilities and Medicare waivers for the use of telehealth.

Anew study claims that AI models like ChatGPT and Claude now outperform PhD-level virologists in problem-solving in wet labs, where scientists analyze chemicals and biological material. This discovery is a double-edged sword, experts say. Ultra-smart AI models could help researchers prevent the spread of infectious diseases. But non-experts could also weaponize the models to create deadly bioweapons. The study, shared exclusively with TIME, was conducted by researchers at the Center for AI Safety, MIT’s Media Lab, the Brazilian university UFABC, and the pandemic prevention nonprofit SecureBio. The authors consulted virologists to create an extremely difficult practical test which measured the ability to troubleshoot complex lab procedures and protocols. While PhD-level virologists scored an average of 22.1% in their declared areas of expertise, OpenAI’s o3 reached 43.8% accuracy. Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro scored 37.6%. Advertisement Seth Donoughe, a research scientist at SecureBio and a co-author of the paper, says that the results make him a “little nervous,” because for the first time in history, virtually anyone has access to a non-judgmental AI virology expert which might walk them through complex lab processes to create bioweapons. “Throughout history, there are a fair number of cases where someone attempted to make a bioweapon—and one of the major reasons why they didn’t succeed is because they didn’t have access to the right level of expertise,” he says. “So it seems worthwhile to be cautious about how these capabilities are being distributed.” Months ago, the paper’s authors sent the results to the major AI labs. In response, xAI published a risk management framework pledging its intention to implement virology safeguards for future versions of its AI model Grok. OpenAI told TIME that it "deployed new system-level mitigations for biological risks" for its new models released last week. Anthropic included model performance results on the paper in recent system cards, but did not propose specific mitigation measures. Google’s Gemini declined to comment to TIME.

Eons ago, humans living in the wild were exposed to every germ nature could throw at them—mud, microbes, and whatever drifted around the communal waterhole. We’ve traded tree canopies for roofs, but the germs are still showing up, hiding in our household possessions. We often overlook the dirtiest items in our homes because grime is invisible (think bacteria) or accumulates too gradually for us to notice. Another factor: our brains tend to tune out the appearance of familiar, everyday objects, in a phenomenon called attentional blindness. This means we’re least likely to scrutinize the things we touch the most, even as they become swamped by bacteria. Advertisement Some argue that chronic immune conditions that plague modern humans stem in part from our tendency to avoid beneficial germs that would train the immune system to fight off pathogens. (This is called the hygiene hypothesis.) “There’s some truth to that,” says Kelly Reynolds, professor of environmental risk at the University of Arizona. “But we do need to reduce risk and exposure to bad bacteria that can drive sickness,” she says, including colds and skin infections. Here, experts reveal which items in your house are harboring the most bacteria—and how to clean them

Amid the measles outbreak that started in Texas and is now believed to have spread to four other states, many people might be wondering: do I need to get a measles vaccine booster? Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease that can lead to severe complications, including death. It’s also vaccine preventable through the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is typically administered in childhood in two doses. More than two decades ago, measles was declared eliminated from the U.S., thanks in large part to a successful vaccination program. But in recent years, vaccination rates have declined and measles cases have soared. In 2024, there were 285 reported measles cases in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Four months into 2025, the agency has received reports of 800 confirmed measles cases. Of those, 96% were in people who were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Advertisement So far in 2025, two children in Texas have died of measles-related complications; both of them were unvaccinated. A third person, an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico, tested positive for measles after death, though the official cause of death is still under investigation, according to the CDC. Before this year, the last confirmed measles death in the U.S. was in 2015, according to the CDC. Read More: Why Measles Cases Are Rising Right Now Public health experts say that the best way to protect yourself against measles is to get vaccinated. The MMR vaccine is safe and effective; according to the CDC, two doses are 97% effective against measles. People who don’t get the MMR vaccine in childhood can still get it later in life, says Dr. Ravi Jhaveri, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the division head of pediatric infectious diseases at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The CDC has said that most people who get the MMR vaccine will be protected for life, and there are no official recommendations to get a third dose of the vaccine during a measles outbreak. “The vast majority of people with two doses are protected [and] do not come down with measles,” Jhaveri says. “We have decades upon decades of experience that two doses has been safe and effective, and when we maintained two doses at a very high level across our population, we were seeing very few, if any, outbreaks.” Still, that doesn’t mean a booster is never needed for other types of diseases. According to Jhaveri, there are two important factors that help make that determination: the genetic variability of the virus and the nature of your immunity. The viruses causing the flu and COVID-19, for instance, have a lot of genetic variability, which is why public health experts recommend getting a new vaccine against those viruses every year. People also get booster shots for tetanus because antibody levels against the bacteria wane over time and if someone has a high-risk exposure—such as stepping on a rusty nail—doctors err on the side of vaccinating them afterward, Jhaveri says. But measles, he says, is more genetically stable and both doses of the MMR vaccine “allow for you to have antibody levels that are high enough to protect you and also allow your cells to respond in case you are exposed, to prevent you from getting infected.”

Sorry to overwhelm you, but there are lots of different types of apologies. Some are heartfelt; others are inflammatory. Some are just meaningless uses of the word “sorry”—a language habit we should all try to fix so that true apologies carry more weight. “Understanding these different types of apologies helps us become more discerning about the messages we receive, and more intentional about the ones we send,” says Audra Nuru, a professor of communication studies and family studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. “It hopefully helps us foster more authentic and meaningful communication in our lives.”

On its face, the April 17 report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was nothing short of alarming. According to a nationwide survey conducted in 2022 across 16 localities in the U.S., one in 31 children studied had been diagnosed with autism. That’s a significant increase from the one-in-36 reported in 2020, and a huge jump from the one-in-150 in 2000. “The autism epidemic is running rampant,” declared Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a press release. “President Trump has tasked me with identifying the root causes of the childhood chronic disease epidemic—including autism. We are assembling teams of world-class scientists to focus research on the origins of the epidemic, and we expect to begin to have answers by September.” Advertisement But Kennedy has it wrong, say critics—and even the CDC itself. The increases seen in various communities, says the report, “might be due to differences in availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices…Another reason for differences in prevalence could be whether children have insurance coverage or meet eligibility criteria for access to early intervention services.” That is in keeping with the position of experts, who have maintained for years that increases in autism cases are a mere function of better screening and a widening of the diagnostic criteria of what constitutes the condition. If you look for more autism—and, not insignificantly, have a better understanding of the signs—you’re going to find more. “Most of the rise in autism is not a true rise of autism, but an increase in diagnosis and because of changes in diagnostic criteria,” says Dr. Peter Hotez, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor College of Medicine, and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital’s Center for Vaccine Development. “Also, starting in 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics asked pediatricians to start doing autism screening at between one and two years of age. Additionally, we've provided access to autism services, so there's been incentive to get kids help.”

Abortion rights advocates are concerned that the Trump Administration will reinstate an abortion ban at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities, rolling back the Biden Administration’s efforts to expand access for veterans and their beneficiaries. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the VA had banned abortion under any circumstances and prohibited its medical providers from counseling patients about abortion. But after the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Biden Administration enacted a rule allowing VA medical facilities to offer abortion counseling and abortion care to veterans and their beneficiaries in certain situations, including if the health or life of the pregnant person is at risk or if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. Even if the VA facility is based in a state that has banned or restricted abortion, medical providers there can still provide abortion care in these limited instances. Advertisement Last month, the Trump Administration’s VA submitted for review an interim final rule regarding reproductive health services, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. There’s no further information or details on what the rule says. The VA did not respond to a request for comment, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment by press time. But abortion rights advocates fear that the rule will repeal the Biden-era policy, preventing veterans and their beneficiaries from obtaining abortion care at VA facilities across the country—both in states where abortion is legal and in those that have restricted it. “If they fully rescind the rule, we would be going back to a complete ban on abortion for veterans through the [VA] health care system,” says Freya Riedlin, senior federal policy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “That was already bad before the Biden Administration, which added in these exceptions, but now we’re living in a completely different landscape.”

In an hour-long meeting at Eli Lilly and Company’s headquarters in Indianapolis on April 15, the pharmaceutical company’s top executives met, like they had dozens of times before, to hear the long-awaited results of a study involving a new drug. There’s always a lot riding on these presentations, called readouts. But this one, for Lilly’s first diabetes and weight-loss pill based on the GLP-1 hormone, was particularly fraught. Days before, rival pharma giant Pfizer had announced it was abandoning its oral weight-loss drug after worrying side effects involving liver problems were reported in one participant in the trial. It was the second drug in its class that had failed for Pfizer. Advertisement So, David Ricks, Lilly’s CEO, was understandably cautious. It was the latest in a string of milestone moments for the understated leader of the country’s most dynamic pharmaceutical company. Lilly executives took TIME inside the complex process of developing the new pill that unfolded over a series of conversations and a visit to the company’s headquarters and labs in Indianapolis to detail both the scientific advancements as well as the unique culture at the pharma giant that made the drug possible. And now it all came down to this meeting. Early phase studies had been promising, but anything can happen when a new drug is tested on thousands more people. “In my job as CEO, I’ve walked into a room like that about 30 times, and most of them have been for successful drugs—but there have been failures,” he says. “You can kind of tell by the way people are sitting what the outcome is going to be. But what you don’t know is the degree