Health

Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines

Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share this year's Nobel prize for medicine.

72-hour doctor strike to cause extreme disruption

Three-day joint walkout by junior doctors and consultants begins on Monday as pay dispute escalates.

Covid will 'continue to surprise us', warns health official

Health officials are encouraging anyone eligible to get jabs to protect against Covid and flu.

Metaphors for human fertilization are evolving, study shows

In a common metaphor used to describe human fertilization, sperm cells are competitors racing to penetrate a passive egg. But as critics have noted, the description is also a 'fairy tale,' rooted in cultural beliefs about masculinity and femininity. A new study by sociologists provides evidence that this metaphor remains widely used despite the profound shift in recent decades in social and scientific views about gender, sex, and sexuality. But her findings, based on interviews with a diverse sample of 47 individuals, also reveal that a more gender-egalitarian metaphor is circulating that describes sperm and egg as two halves of a whole.

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