May 19, 2026
Essay
Ebola in DRC and Uganda: Outbreak Update
Live outbreak notes on Ebola virus disease in DRC and Uganda, with what is confirmed, what remains uncertain, and why regional spread matters.
Writing archive
Published work from The Edge of Epidemiology
Essays on outbreaks, evidence, disease history, ecology, neuroepidemiology, and the public arguments that gather around health.
Archive
89 essays
Each entry keeps the essay connected to topic hubs, disease maps, and related work across the site.
May 13, 2026
Essay
Korean War Hantavirus: Hemorrhagic Fever History
How Korean War trench warfare, rodent ecology, and Hantaan virus turned a mysterious military outbreak into hantavirus history.
May 4, 2026
Essay
MV Hondius Hantavirus Outbreak: What We Know
A source-first guide to the MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak, Andes virus, cruise-ship exposure, travel risk, and what investigators could know.
May 2, 2026
Essay
New Fungal STI: Epidemiology and Transmission Risk
A source-aware look at a newly reported sexually transmitted fungal infection, including MSM networks, case evidence, transmission questions, and reporting limits.
April 25, 2026
Essay
Ancient DNA and Disease Selection in West Eurasia
How ancient DNA, infectious disease pressure, immunity, and changing environments help explain genomic selection in West Eurasian populations.
April 11, 2026
Essay
Big Epidemiology: Disease at Civilization Scale
A framework essay for thinking about disease across deep time, infrastructure, migration, ecology, empire, and the systems civilizations build.
April 4, 2026
Essay
1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever: America’s First Epidemic Crisis
The 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic as an early American public-health crisis shaped by urban ecology, politics, race, and mosquito-borne disease.
April 1, 2026
Essay
Did Vikings Spread Plague Across the North Sea?
A careful look at Viking movement, North Sea disease ecology, plague evidence, Norse voyages, and the limits of reconstructing medieval pathogen spread.
March 27, 2026
Essay
Tuberculosis and the Fragility of Public Health
A Pathogen Dispatch essay on tuberculosis, public-health capacity, drug resistance, airborne transmission, and why old diseases keep returning.
March 21, 2026
Essay
Disease in the American Revolutionary War: Who Died of What?
Disease mortality in the American Revolutionary War, including battle deaths, smallpox, camp disease, military medicine, and eighteenth-century survival.
March 16, 2026
Essay
Disease on the Oregon Trail: Cholera, Dysentery, and Death
Disease on the Oregon Trail, from cholera and dysentery to overland migration, sanitation, graves, and nineteenth-century westward travel.
March 7, 2026
Essay
Yellow Fever and Napoleon’s American Empire
How yellow fever, mosquitoes, Saint-Domingue, military failure, and disease ecology helped destroy Napoleon’s North American empire plans.
February 27, 2026
Essay
Smallpox and the American Revolution
How smallpox threatened the American Revolution, why inoculation mattered, and how disease shaped military survival during the founding war.
February 14, 2026
Essay
Colonial Disease Ecology Before the Revolution
Smallpox, measles, malaria, diphtheria, enteric disease, and vector-borne fevers in early British North America before the Revolution.
January 31, 2026
Essay
Why Europeans Didn’t Die of New World Diseases
Why Old World pathogens devastated Indigenous Americans while New World diseases rarely reversed the catastrophe in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
January 18, 2026
Essay
Plague, Steppe Migrations, and Ancient DNA
Ancient DNA, Yamnaya and steppe migrations, plague evidence, and how pathogen history intersects with population-genetic change.
January 11, 2026
Essay
Disease and Population Collapse After 1492
A careful look at disease, colonial disruption, Indigenous population collapse, Old World pathogens, and the limits of simple post-1492 stories.
January 3, 2026
Essay
Maritime Disease Ecology on Early Ships
Shipboard disease ecology before modern medicine: scurvy, infection, crowding, ports, naval history, and the epidemiology of life at sea.
December 30, 2025
Essay
Cocoliztli: Mexico’s 16th-Century Mystery Epidemic
Cocoliztli and Mexico’s sixteenth-century mystery epidemics, including retrospective diagnosis, colonial records, ancient DNA, and pathogen uncertainty.
December 24, 2025
Essay
Oldest Human Diseases and Prehistory
What ancient infections, inherited pathogens, and human prehistory can reveal about disease pressure before written medical history.
December 17, 2025
Essay
Pre-Contact South American Disease Ecology
Part two of a pre-contact Americas disease ecology series, focused on South America, isolation, endemic infections, and ecological context.
December 10, 2025
Essay
Pre-Contact North and Central American Disease Ecology
Disease ecology in North and Central America before 1492, including isolation from Eurasian disease pools and Indigenous health context.
December 3, 2025
Essay
Syphilis Origins Debate: When Did It Reach Europe?
A historical epidemiology guide to the syphilis origins debate, Treponema evidence, ancient DNA, and the Columbian versus pre-Columbian question.
November 19, 2025
Essay
Ancient Hookworm in the Americas
Ancient hookworm in the Americas, parasite geography, archaeology, migration, and why a tropical helminth complicates disease-history origin stories.
November 12, 2025
Essay
Fossilized Poop: What Coprolites Reveal
What fossilized feces, archaeology, parasite evidence, diet, and microbial remains can tell us about ancient health and disease.
November 4, 2025
Essay
Oldest Diseases in the Fossil Record
A deep-time disease essay on the oldest known evidence for infection, cancer, parasites, and what paleopathology can reveal.
October 28, 2025
Essay
Deadliest Microbes in Human History
A critical look at claims about history’s deadliest microbes, mortality estimates, infectious disease rankings, and what counts as a deadly companion.
October 22, 2025
Essay
Leprosy and Empire in the South Pacific
Leprosy, colonial rule, island isolation, stigma, and the public-health geography of empire in the South Pacific.
October 14, 2025
Essay
Staten Island Quarantine War of 1858
The 1858 Staten Island quarantine hospital fire, immigrant disease fear, port quarantine, yellow fever panic, and public-health violence.
October 7, 2025
Essay
GLP-1 Drugs and Migraine: Evidence Guide
What GLP-1 agonists might mean for migraine, headache biology, metabolic drugs, clinical evidence, and what remains speculative.
September 26, 2025
Essay
U.S. Life Expectancy Gap: What the Numbers Mean
A methods-first look at the U.S. life expectancy gap, why it sounds worse than it is, and what the counterfactuals imply.
September 18, 2025
Essay
Psychedelics for Anxiety: LSD Trial Evidence
What a new LSD trial does and does not show about psychedelics for anxiety, trial design, clinical endpoints, and evidence limits.
September 11, 2025
Essay
Body Snatching and the Doctors’ Riot
How cadaver shortages, grave robbing, riots, and medical education shaped the history of American anatomy and public trust.
September 3, 2025
Essay
Heat Exposure and Unequal Aging Risk
Why heat exposure may not age everyone equally, including climate risk, social vulnerability, occupational exposure, and epidemiologic measurement.
August 28, 2025
Essay
Founder Effects, Rare Disease, and Screening
Founder effects, population bottlenecks, rare disease risk, genetic ancestry, and why screening programs often follow history.
August 21, 2025
Essay
Climate, Urbanization, and Infectious Disease Risk
How warmer weather, urbanization, vector range, travel, and ecological change are shifting infectious disease risks in 2025.
August 15, 2025
Essay
Lithium and Alzheimer’s Risk: Evidence Guide
A guide to the evidence on lithium and Alzheimer’s risk, including observational data, mechanisms, trial limits, and causal uncertainty.
August 7, 2025
Essay
Paper Mills and Scientific Fraud
How paper mills poison science, why fake studies spread, and what scientific publishing loses when quantity beats credibility.
July 31, 2025
Essay
Super Agers and Preventive Medicine
A response to Eric Topol’s super-agers argument and the medical system needed for aging, prevention, function, and long-term health.
July 23, 2025
Essay
Migraine Brain Fog and Cognition
Migraine brain fog, cognition, medication trade-offs, attack phases, and how cognitive symptoms complicate the lived burden of migraine.
July 17, 2025
Essay
Memetics After Memetics
Why the word memetics faded while viral ideas, imitation, information spread, and cultural transmission kept shaping public life.
July 10, 2025
Essay
Psilocybin vs Antidepressants: Meta-Analysis
A meta-analysis comparison of psilocybin and antidepressants for depression, with attention to study design, endpoints, and overstated certainty.
July 5, 2025
Essay
Pont-Saint-Esprit Poisoning Outbreak of 1951
The unsolved 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit outbreak, ergot theories, poisoning claims, CIA rumors, and why retrospective diagnosis stays hard.
June 30, 2025
Essay
Migraine Epidemiology: Who Gets Hit Hardest
Migraine is disabling and unevenly treated. Here is what the data says about who gets it, who lacks help, and why uncertainty remains.
June 26, 2025
Essay
American Headache Society Conference Notes
A short migraine research note from the American Headache Society meeting, focused on clinical questions, evidence gaps, and field direction.
June 22, 2025
Essay
Melanotan Nasal Spray and Barbie Drug Risks
A risk-communication essay on melanotan nasal sprays, tanning peptides, sexual side effects, black-market marketing, and safety concerns.
June 17, 2025
Essay
Apple Watch Accuracy and Fitness Trackers
What fitness trackers and Apple Watch data are good for, where wearable measurements fail, and how to interpret consumer health metrics.
June 10, 2025
Essay
Justinianic Plague and War Epidemiology
A War Epidemiology chapter draft on the Justinianic Plague, military stress, empire, logistics, and disease pressure in 541 CE.
June 5, 2025
Essay
Magnesium for Sleep: Evidence vs Hype
A skeptical look at magnesium for sleep, mocktail marketing, supplement evidence, and why plausible mechanisms are not enough.
June 3, 2025
Essay
Dopamine Detox Claims and Brain Training
A critique of dopamine detox claims, poorly trained brains, social media habits, reward systems, and pop-neuroscience oversimplification.
May 31, 2025
Essay
Melatonin Misuse and Sleep Evidence
Why melatonin is misunderstood, who may benefit, how timing matters, and where sleep supplement claims outrun the evidence.
May 29, 2025
Essay
Raw Milk Risks and Evidence
A public-health look at raw milk, foodborne pathogens, pasteurization, outbreak risk, and the evidence behind natural-food claims.
May 27, 2025
Essay
Natural Wellness Claims and Disease Risk
A critique of “back to nature” wellness claims, synthetic panic, food fear, and why nature is not automatically safer.
May 21, 2025
Essay
Vitamin D, Dementia, and Rhonda Patrick’s Claims
An evidence check on Rhonda Patrick’s vitamin D and dementia claims, observational studies, confounding, and supplement certainty.
May 20, 2025
Essay
Detox Cleanses and the Body’s Real Filtration Systems
Why detox cleanses, supplement stacks, and smoothie cures misunderstand liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal physiology.
May 18, 2025
Essay
Skin Latitude Mismatch and Colonial Sun Exposure
How skin pigmentation, latitude, migration, colonial settlement, UV exposure, and sunburn risk collide when ancestry and place diverge.
May 17, 2025
Essay
Creatine Benefits and Evidence
Why creatine may be underrated for people who could benefit, including muscle, aging, cognition claims, and supplement evidence limits.
May 15, 2025
Essay
Why I Write The Edge of Epidemiology
A statement of purpose for The Edge of Epidemiology: better science communication, disease history, public health, and evidence-aware writing.
May 12, 2025
Essay
Early Puberty, Calories, and Environmental Change
A public-health essay on early puberty, calories, growth, endocrine signals, obesity, and environmental explanations.
May 7, 2025
Essay
Due Diligence and Strong Opinions
Why strong opinions require due diligence, epistemic humility, evidence review, and a higher bar than vibes or tribal certainty.
May 5, 2025
Essay
Scout Mindset and Rethinking Certainty
A reflection on scout mindset, certainty, tribalism, belief formation, and why changing your mind is part of serious reasoning.
May 2, 2025
Essay
Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer Risk Evidence
A risk-communication guide to artificial sweeteners, health headlines, cancer fears, confounding, and scapegoat nutrition claims.
April 29, 2025
Essay
Gluten Panic and Food Fear
How gluten became a wellness panic, what celiac disease and sensitivity evidence actually show, and where food fear outruns data.
April 24, 2025
Essay
Stem Cells for Parkinson’s: Trial Evidence
What new stem cell trials mean for Parkinson’s disease, safety, endpoints, clinical promise, and why the field still has no cure.
April 22, 2025
Essay
Learning Causal Inference as an Epidemiologist
A methods essay on learning causal inference, epidemiology training, counterfactual thinking, and why the framework can feel brain-breaking.
April 19, 2025
Essay
Asperger’s, Autism, and Diagnostic Reclassification
How diagnostic reclassification helped create the appearance of an autism epidemic, and what changing case definitions do to trend data.
April 16, 2025
Essay
Monogamous Birds and Reproductive Ecology
Why apparently monogamous birds often mate outside pairs, and what animal behavior teaches about ecology, genetics, and expectation.
April 14, 2025
Essay
Baseline Risk and Misleading Health Headlines
How health headlines can be technically true but misleading when baseline risk, relative risk, and absolute risk are left out.
April 11, 2025
Essay
Epidemiology’s Trust Crisis After COVID
Why epidemiology did not have a replication crisis in the usual sense, but still ended up with a public trust crisis after COVID.
April 8, 2025
Essay
Obesity, Dopamine, and Reward Biology
Why obesity is not simply a dopamine deficiency, what reward biology suggests, and how simple neurochemical stories mislead.
April 7, 2025
Essay
Personality Heritability Is Probabilistic
Why personality heritability is probabilistic, not destiny, and how genetics, environment, and uncertainty shape psychological traits.
April 5, 2025
Essay
Every Food Is a Carcinogen If You Trust Bad Studies
Why weak nutrition studies can make almost any food look carcinogenic, and how confounding, measurement, and multiple testing mislead.
April 2, 2025
Essay
Cannabis and Psychosis: Evidence Is Not Simple
Why the relationship between cannabis and psychosis is not straightforward, including causality, confounding, dose, and psychiatric risk.
March 27, 2025
Essay
Chronic Wasting Disease: Prion Ecology
A Devilish Diseases essay on chronic wasting disease, prions, wildlife ecology, deer populations, surveillance, and spillover anxiety.
March 25, 2025
Essay
Tropical Diseases and Cognitive Development
How endemic tropical diseases can affect childhood cognition, development, school performance, and long-term public-health inequality.
March 21, 2025
Essay
Measles Immune Amnesia and Vaccination
How measles immune amnesia raises the stakes of vaccination, resurgence, outbreak control, and the hidden burden after infection.
March 19, 2025
Essay
AI in Healthcare: Uses and Limits
A practical overview of AI in healthcare, current applications, clinical promise, implementation limits, and risks of overclaiming.
March 12, 2025
Essay
Epilepsy Stigma and Global Public Health
A personal and global-health look at epilepsy, seizure stigma, treatment gaps, public misunderstanding, and the burden of neurological disease.
March 5, 2025
Essay
Multiple Sclerosis Latitude Gradient
Examining why multiple sclerosis risk increases with distance from the equator, including latitude, vitamin D, genetics, and environment.
February 20, 2025
Essay
Migraine Neuroepidemiology and Neuroscience
A migraine research overview connecting neuroepidemiology, neuroscience, burden, treatment gaps, and recent literature.
February 7, 2025
Essay
Neuroepidemiology: What the Field Studies
An introduction to neuroepidemiology, including neurological disease patterns, risk factors, populations, surveillance, and public-health methods.
January 27, 2025
Essay
Bivalve Transmissible Cancer: BTN
What is known about bivalve transmissible neoplasia, marine disease ecology, cancer transmission, and ecosystem risk.
January 19, 2025
Essay
Bacteriophages for Sustainability
How bacteriophages could be used in food safety, water treatment, agriculture, environmental health, and sustainability.
January 13, 2025
Essay
Bacteriophages and Antibiotic Resistance
A guide to bacteriophages as a possible tool against antibiotic resistance, including medical uses, promise, and limits.
January 2, 2025
Essay
Oral GLP-1 Agonists for Obesity and Diabetes
A guide to oral GLP-1 agonists, obesity and type 2 diabetes treatment, clinical promise, delivery advantages, and evidence still needed.
December 24, 2024
Essay
Koala Retrovirus and Conservation Disease
How koala retrovirus, habitat loss, climate stress, and infectious disease combine into a conservation and evolutionary health problem.
December 8, 2024
Essay
Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumor
The ancient canine transmissible venereal tumor, how a cancer crossed continents, and what transmissible cancers reveal about disease ecology.
November 28, 2024
Essay
Foodborne Illness and Thanksgiving Safety
A holiday food-safety guide to foodborne illness, kitchen risk, turkey handling, pathogens, and how not to ruin Thanksgiving.
November 26, 2024
Essay
Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease
A Devilish Diseases essay on Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease, transmissible cancer, wildlife ecology, and conservation risk.