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Kathryn Clancy wrote an entire book about menstrual cycles. But even she was surprised by some of the pre-menopausal symptoms she recently began to experience at age 44.“A lot of things that have to do with my uterus, ovaries, and breasts, I have been massively underprepared for as a Ph.D.-level expert in this field,” says Clancy, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “That should tell you how even more underprepared most people are.”Most people who menstruate will experience symptoms including hot flashes, brain fog, and changes to mood, sleep, and sexual function as they approach menopause, defined as the point in time a year after their last period. But that transition, which typically begins between the ages of 45 and 55, is so rarely discussed in society—and at t...

Your immune system may be getting smarter every time you encounter COVID-19, a new study suggests. After getting vaccinated and infected, the immune system generates broader defenses against the virus, including against new variants.In a paper published Jan. 19 in Science Immunology, researchers in South Korea compared immune cells in the lab from people with a variety of vaccine and infection histories throughout the different Omicron waves, which began in late 2021 with BA.1. People who had been vaccinated with the original Pfizer-BioNTech series and then got infected with any Omicron variant showed good levels of memory immune cells—called T cells—that defended not only against the variants causing the infection, but also related ones in the Omicron family that came later. For example, ...

Cameroon will be the first country to routinely give children a new malaria vaccine as the shots are rolled out in Africa.The campaign due to start Monday was described by officials as a milestone in the decades-long effort to curb the mosquito-spread disease on the continent, which accounts for 95% of the world’s malaria deaths.“The vaccination will save lives. It will provide major relief to families and the country’s health system," said Aurelia Nguyen, chief program officer at the Gavi vaccines alliance, which is helping Cameroon secure the shots.The Central Africa nation hopes to vaccinate about 250,000 children this year and next year. Gavi said it is working with 20 other African countries to help them get the vaccine and that those countries will hopefully immunize more than 6 mill...