Petrie Dish

Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Some critics call it a weakness that can be weaponized; others call it a sin. What is this ancient trait that drives humans not only to care about each other, but to act on those feelings? And why do some powerful people insist that you should ignore yours?

A team of San Antonio researchers is training artificial intelligence models to help improve the materials used to make things like cavity fillings and dental sealants, which currently tend to be either unattractive or not as durable as they could be. This could dramatically decrease the time it takes to get better products into dentists' offices and clients' mouths.

One department at the University of Texas at San Antonio School of Public Health is focused on understanding the health challenges associated with a changing climate and developing solutions to mitigate or even prevent them.

A UT San Antonio Health Science Center researcher has found that people with resilient immune systems can live 15 years longer than those who don't, but what is immune resilience? How do you know if your immune system is lagging? Can you get some of those years back?

The program, called Naloxone Texas, distributes free Narcan to students, faculty, and staff, and provides them with overdose response training.

Malaria kills more than half a million people a year, and an effective vaccine has been elusive. But a San Antonio malaria researcher and her team have discovered a vulnerability in the malaria parasite's method of avoiding the human immune system that may make all the difference.

Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie sits down with Public Health Watch reporter Raquel Torres to talk about her story on the Alzheimer's crisis in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as a $3 billion proposal to fund Alzheimer's research in Texas that won't go forward unless Texans say yes at the polls in November.

In Texas, wastewater viral activity for COVID-19 is 'Very High,' according to the CDC.

An anti-aging medication called rapamycin seems to work better in female mice than in males, and it's the only one studied as part of the National Institute of Aging's Interventions Testing Program to do so. Most of the medications singled out for their effectiveness in a recent review only work in male mice.

Once eradicated in the United States, a maggot that feeds on living, warm-blooded animals is inching back toward Texas. It may cross the Southern border before the end of the year. Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie talks with Sonja L. Swiger, Ph.D., from the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension about the screwworm, the threat it poses to animals and humans, and what can be done to minimize the damage.