Nine countries eliminated a disease in 2024. Here's how Pakistan pulled it off — fulfilling a young boy's dream of eliminating blindness caused by bacterial infections.

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Most healthy people have either no symptoms or flu-like symptoms from a parvovirus B19 infection, but it can lead to serious complications for certain groups of people.

(Image credit: Dr P. Marazzi/Science Source)

How does the hepatitis C virus keep the immune system at bay? A scientist finds the answer — and it involves a standard technique used by villains.

In this Back To School episode we consider the "List of Life": the criteria that define what it is to be a living thing. Some are easy calls: A kitten is alive. A grain of salt is not. But what about the tricky cases, like a virus? Or, more importantly, what about futuristic android robots? As part of our Black History Month celebration, developmental biologist Crystal Rogers and scientist-in-residence Regina G. Barber dig into what makes something alive, and wade into a Star-Trek-themed debate.

Is there something you'd like us to cover in our Back To School series? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Gabriel Spitzer and fact-checked by Anil Oza. The audio engineer was Josh Newell.

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Scientists call the name "discriminatory and stigmatizing." The World Health Organization agrees. But no progress has been made on finding a new name. And some say the name doesn't need changing.

Scientists are tracking a deadly bird flu outbreak that has infected wild birds in more than 30 states. Purging the nation's poultry supply may not be enough to keep the virus from sticking around.

(Image credit: Jeff Goulden)

He and his team were stunned by the number of mutations. They felt they'd made a contribution by alerting the world to a dangerous variant. Then came the travel bans for residents of southern Africa.

New research from China suggests people infected with the delta variant have, on average, about 1,000 times more virus in their respiratory tracts than those infected with the original strain.

(Image credit: Juan Gaertner)

This animated video uses puzzle pieces to show how a coronavirus binds to a cell's surface — and what happens when a mutation occurs.