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The length of the flu season may vary depending on where you live, with large cities enduring longer periods of transmission and smaller cities experiencing shorter, but more explosive, spread, a new study suggests. The study doesn’t assert that one’s risk of contracting influenza varies depending on the size of any given community. Rather, it argues that in less populous places, flu needs the right atmospheric conditions to spread effectively. (Branswell, 10/4)

By the time T.J. was about 2½-years-old, it was clear to his mother that he was already behind. His twin brother was speaking in full sentences. T.J. couldn’t say a word. “When you have twins,” she said, “you realize if there are some delays.” So T.J.’s mother, Kerrin, called the pediatrician and asked what she could do. (T.J. and his family members are being identified by their middle names or initials to protect his privacy.) (Harris, 10/5)

The wrenching testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who is accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a sexual assault years ago, raises questions about the long-term emotional and physical toll this kind of trauma takes on survivors and how our society responds to those who come forward long after the assault. Emily R. Dworkin, a senior fellow at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, studies how the social interactions of trauma survivors can affect their recovery. (Fulton, 10/4)

People of Asian and European descent — almost anyone with origins outside of Africa — have inherited a sliver of DNA from some unusual ancestors: the Neanderthals. These genes are the result of repeated interbreeding long ago between Neanderthals and modern humans. But why are those genes still there 40,000 years after Neanderthals became extinct? (Zimmer, 10/4)

Doctors in South Africa say they transplanted part of a liver from a mother with HIV to her critically ill but HIV-negative child, concluding that the chance to save a life outweighed the risk of virus transmission. The mother and the child recovered after the 2017 transplant, though it is not yet known whether the child has the virus that causes AIDS, according to the team from the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre in Johannesburg. (10/4)

Kaiser Health News: Managing Your Mental Health While Managing A Newsroom’s Social Media

Like many people in society today, we know we spend too much time online — but as social media managers it is our job to be there. Social media managers, a position that was unheard of a decade ago, experience tremendous stress. Social media can be a toxic place — especially for those of us who work in that space. Angry users on social seem to forget that a human being is behind the brand’s account they are screaming at or the story they are criticizing. (Giles, 10/5)

Children in some California counties visited emergency rooms for asthma at nearly twice the statewide rate, according to the latest data — a phenomenon that experts blame largely on dangerous air pollution. While children in some of these counties struggle with consistent, long-term exposure to bad air, experts also point to the effects of environmental disasters, such as wildfires and the spread of toxic dust from a dying lake. (Rowan, 10/4)