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Traveling with you and the tens of millions of other people expected to pack into bustling transit hubs and other large gathering places this holiday season will likely be some straggler pathogens. What’s the best way to protect yourself from an untimely ailment? One method popularized by wellness influencers and drug companies is to start popping supplements that promise to “boost your immune system.”
But for immunity, like in other facets of life, you can have too much of a good thing. While a weak immune response can leave you vulnerable to illness, an overactive immune system can itself cause disease. Tinkering with your immune system beyond lifestyle improvements and up-to-date vaccines might not necessarily lead to the health benefits you seek.
We asked immunologist Aimee Pugh Bernard of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to explain the concept of immune balance and what you can do to help your body achieve a “Goldilocks” level of immunity that’s just right.
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Vivian Lam
Associate Health and Biomedicine Editor
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When immune cells become overactive, your immune system itself can cause disease.
NIAID/Flickr
Aimee Pugh Bernard, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Dietary supplements claim to be able to ‘boost your immune system’ to combat disease. But attaining immune balance through a healthy lifestyle and vaccination is a safer bet to keep in good health.
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Economy + Business
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Michael J. Socolow, University of Maine
The JFK assassination was a landmark event in TV news history.
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Ethics + Religion
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Lisa Michelle King, University of Tennessee
A scholar of Native American and Indigenous rhetoric writes about the harm done to Native American nations through colonization and what can be done to reduce it.
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Arts + Culture
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Joseph P. Laycock, Texas State University; Natasha Mikles, Texas State University
Since 2019, fans of the TV series ‘Supernatural’ have flocked to Austin, where their encounters with 1967 Impalas customized to mimic the one used in the show arouse elation, astonishment and tears.
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Education
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Ben Stickle, Middle Tennessee State University; Steven Sprick Schuster, Middle Tennessee State University
People who get an education while serving time are less likely to return to prison and more likely to enter the job market, an analysis finds.
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Politics + Society
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Paul Schofield, Bates College
To be homeless is a condition in which a person’s freedom is profoundly compromised. And that’s un-American, says a philosopher.
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Science + Technology
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Emily Howerton, Penn State; Cecile Viboud, National Institutes of Health; Justin Lessler, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Policymakers rely on models during uncertain times to figure out how their choices could affect the future. Over the pandemic, an ensemble of many COVID-19 models outperformed any one alone.
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Brian Whitacre, Oklahoma State University
Every state is poised to receive a large amount of federal money to expand broadband access, but they have a lot of work to do to meet the government’s requirements for distributing it.
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International
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Ronan Lee, Loughborough University
Nearly three years after seizing power, the military junta in Myanmar has lost control of most of the country.
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Environment + Energy
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Natalie Bursztyn, University of Montana
There are a lot of myths about crystals − for example, that they are magical rocks with healing powers. An earth scientist explains some of their amazing true science.
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