I'm the editor of Healthnews and was previously the women's health editor for Giddy. I've been a freelance journalist for over ten years covering a wide range of topics. I am also a sex coach in training.
Artist Nicki Cherry surrenders control
After Nicki Cherry began to struggle with chronic back pain, she started exploring the meaning of restraint, dependence, and repression and how they’ve contributed to a fragmented body and a lack of control.
In her new exhibition at Slow Dance gallery, “I can be a woman for you,” casts of Cherry’s body are attached to metal supports; they are the grab bars that we see in public toilets and trains. The supports resemble sterile extensions to the body, making movements easier, stronger, and mor...
Two University of Chicago students are cultivating the community of chess
Dylan Sunjic started playing chess when he was five years old at his grandparents’ house in Tampa, Florida. After learning the basic openings, Sunjic says, “I already knew that it was the kind of game for me.” Now, at 22 years old, he says it’s still the game for him.
Sunjic would go on to play tournaments and was the four-time junior state champion for his age group and a two-time national runner-up. He currently plays on the University of Chicago’s chess team, which is sixth in the nation.
...
Review: Bad River
Weaving in the harsh histories of boarding schools, ethnic and cultural cleansing, the Walleye Wars, and the right to their land, Bad River: A Story of Defiance centers on the aging Line 5 Pipeline that is at risk of rupturing into the largest freshwater resource in the United States—Lake Superior.
The pipeline intrudes on Bad River land, where their efforts to get it removed have been an ongoing battle involving Big Oil trespassing, money-draining lawsuits, and the peak of desperation.
What’...
Into the desert with Joe Gallo
When I asked Joe Gallo how long he’s been making art, he asked me how far I’d like for him to go. “That goes pretty far back,” he said.
Gallo was ten years old when he asked his uncle if he could borrow his camera. He never gave it back.
From there, Gallo’s journey with self-taught photography grew. He liked the immediacy of the medium and having a different approach to making an image than, say, drawing or painting.
Throughout his art career, he worked in advertising, design, and broadcast t...
A spring full of film in Chicago
Asian Pop-Up Cinema is returning for its 18th edition through April 21. The festival focuses on a different region each week, with this year’s edition featuring an inaugural partnership with Northwestern University, with special screenings and guest lectures.
Highlights include the opening night film Ru, which follows a young Vietnamese girl and her family as they struggle to adapt after fleeing Saigon for Quebec in 1975, and closing night film We Are Family, a comedy about the (mis)adventure...
Saving the Point, again
Every summer, Steve Tullis and his wife drive roughly 20 miles from suburban La Grange to Hyde Park’s renowned Promontory Point, a pilgrimage they make at least 50 times throughout the season. It’s the only reason they visit the city anymore, Tullis says.
Tullis participates in triathlons and says, for him, the Point is a training ground where he swims a mile course (to the other pier) twice a day while his wife swims to the first buoy and back. The couple has seen impromptu weddings, burials...
Diabetes' Unique Impact on Women's Vaginal Health
Approximately 15 million women in the United States have diabetes. And in many ways, women have more to manage when it comes to their diabetes and their overall health — including their vaginal health. In light of National Diabetes Month, we discuss the ways in which diabetes impacts yeast and bladder infections, plus the effects on libido and sex.
Diabetes is connected to a plethora of dilemmas, as it stems from the inability to produce glucose — AKA sugar — which can create complications th...
Mona S. Jhaveri Is Raising Awareness About Liver Cancer
October is Liver Cancer Awareness Month, and with 41,210 new cases estimated for liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer for 2023, and 29,380 deaths, awareness is crucial.
The two primary types of liver cancer are hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma. Hepatocellular is the most common type of liver cancer, but it is still relatively rare in the United States compared to the rest of the world. But cases are increasing. Since 1980, liver cancer rates have tripled, and deaths have mor...
Top 5 Cyberattacks on Healthcare in 2023
We looked at the top five cyberattacks impacting healthcare organizations and hospitals in 2023, a year of havoc on the industry that left patients vulnerable and unprotected.
In the first three months of 2023, the healthcare industry saw 145 data breaches.
Healthcare security has been threatened by ransomware attacks, phishing scams, and medical device hacking. The results are costly and, more importantly, prey on sensitive patient information.
It's no surprise that healthcare is such a hot ...
16 Political Leaders Have 'Forever Chemicals' in Their Systems
Through a campaign to push for a widespread European Union ban, top Brussels politicians have discovered that toxic chemicals are in their systems.
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and ChemSec, a nonprofit organization that advocates for substituting toxic chemicals, looked at 16 political leaders and published their results, illustrating the crisis of toxic chemicals in our bloodstream.
In all tested individuals, up to seven per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) were found and fi...
Leslie Kenny, Founder of Oxford Healthspan, Redefines Aging and Illness
In her late 30s, Leslie Kenny was diagnosed with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and hypothyroidism. Kenny decided to work on healing herself through what the modern medical system would call "alternative," but what would ultimately reverse her conditions and change her life.
After heading back to school at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC (and keep in mind, this is after Kenny graduated from Berkley and Harvard Business School), the California-based entrepreneur would go on to sta...
Weight Loss Drug Overdoses: Poison Centers See Increase in Calls
Semaglutide has been gripping people across the globe, as both a diabetes medication and a weight loss drug. Now, in the United States, poison control centers have reported a 1,500% increase in phone calls due to accidental overdose symptoms related to the injection drug.
From January through November 2023, almost 3,000 calls to poison control centers in the U.S. were related to semaglutide, a drug used for weight loss and the management of type 2 diabetes.
In 2017, semaglutide was approved b...
Saving the South Shore Nature Sanctuary
South of downtown Chicago—about 8.6 miles—is a vast, undeveloped area that sits along the Lake Michigan shoreline. There, benches and firepits and silence are all-encompassing. Local birders walk along a boardwalk, binoculars close to their faces, while others wander around the space’s lagoons. A mile further south is Rainbow Beach, named for the colored sand on its dunes.
The area is rich with an untamed shoreline, free and open to the public like Chicago promised it always would be—but the ...
Review: Disco Boy
Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese lands his dazzling and violent feature debut by following the lives of two men. Accompanied by a synthy soundtrack, Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), a guerrilla fighter in the Niger Delta, meets Aleksei (Franz Rogowski), a Belarusian immigrant serving in the French Foreign Legion, and two worlds collide.
Set to the tune of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the viewer wanders through the jungle of Niger and into the dance clubs of France. What connects these two men is ...
Best place to learn salsa, bachata, and mambo for free
Pier 31 is out under the open sky, with no cover charge, and offers a full food and drink menu. You can ride your bike there or even dock your boat there. No shirt, no shoes? No problem.
Located at 31st Street Beach, Pier 31 Restaurant hosts events seven days a week, including DJ sets by house-music legends, concerts by R&B bands, and big-screen projections of Bulls games.
Every Tuesday at 6 PM during its open season, the Pier hosts a free hour-long mambo, salsa, and bachata dance lesson. It’...