Becky Levine

It strikes boxers, cyclists, hockey and football players with alarming frequency. Once the outward cuts and bruises have healed, the lingering effects of a severe blow to the head can stealthily wreak havoc on the brain, creating long-term deficits in memory, mood and cognition. Known as traumatic brain injury (TBI), the condition has gained national prominence as star athletes have publicly acknowledged their struggles. Now, the medical community is sounding the alarm about the prevalence of TBI among soldiers, who face comparable risks as they engage in rigorous training, athletics and combat. Since 2000, there have been 344,000 documented...

The threat is silent, almost imperceptible, to those of us who work outside the realm of national security. We don’t awaken to the notion that our air could be poisoned, our water contaminated. Yet every day, we face potential terrorist attacks of the biological kind: anthrax, botulism, plague and smallpox, to name the most likely agents. All are prime weapons because they are cheap, easy to produce, simple to administer and difficult to detect. “Today, one man can make war. A lucky bio-buffoon could kill 400,000 people,” the oft quoted microbiologist and Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg famously said. With...