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For nine frustrating years, Lesley and John Brown tried to conceive a child but failed because of her blocked fallopian tubes. Then in late 1977, this English couple put their hopes in the hands of two men of science. Thus began their leap into the unknown, and into history. On July 25, 1978, the Browns got what they had long wished for with the arrival of a daughter, Louise, a baby like no other the world had seen. She came into being through a process of in vitro fertilization developed by Robert G. Edwards and Patrick Steptoe. Her father’s sperm was mixed with her mother’s egg in a petri dish, and the resulting embryo was then implanted into the womb for normal development. (Haberman, 6/10)

The story of Maverick Coltrin’s medical mystery is gripping: Last October, he was just 6 days old when he stopped eating. Then the seizures came. His tiny arms and legs would stiffen for a few seconds as many as 30 times per hour. Doctors at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego tried multiple tests and medications, but nothing revealed what was wrong. When Maverick turned dusty blue, his parents asked, “Do you think he’s going to survive?” The answer: “We’re doing everything we can.” (Richards, 6/10)

In “I Sing the Body Electric,” poet Walt Whitman waxed lyrically about the “action and power” of “beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh.” More than 150 years later, MIT materials scientist and engineer Canan Dagdeviren and colleagues are giving new meaning to Whitman’s poem with a device that can generate electricity from the way it distorts in response to the beating of the heart. Despite tremendous technological advances, a key drawback of most wearable and implantable devices is their batteries, whose limited capacities restrict their long-term use. The last thing you want to do when a pacemaker runs out of power is to open up a patient just for battery replacement. (Choi, 6/9)

During his three decades as an emergency-room doctor, Bob Uslander had never written a prescription for a lethal dose of medication. But then he shifted to geriatric and palliative care, and in 2016, a patient suffering from the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) wanted to use California's new physician-assisted death law. Uslander was apprehensive. Until then, he had always viewed death as a failure. (Bever, 6/10)

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may end without the available experimental drugs having been tested, given the way transmission appears to have slowed. And some experts who have watched with frustration the snail’s pace progress of the efforts to study Ebola drugs during outbreaks are beginning to wonder if, with the advent of Ebola vaccines, the window for doing this kind of research may be closing for good. (Branswell 6/11)

On New Year's Eve, back in 2012, Savannah Eason retreated into her bedroom and picked up a pair of scissors. "I was holding them up to my palm as if to cut myself," she says. "Clearly what was happening was I needed someone to do something." Her dad managed to wrestle the scissors from her hands, but that night it had become clear she needed help. "It was really scary," she recalls. "I was sobbing the whole time." (Aubrey and Greenhalgh, 6/11)

During the 1940s, heart surgeons tried to treat valve disease by sticking a gloved finger into a beating heart to widen the valve. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Treating valve disease has come a long way since its rudimentary beginnings, especially after the introduction in the 1950s of the heart-lung machine, which enables surgeons to stop the heart while they work on it. In the years that followed, surgeons, engineers and other scientists began creating novel valves to replace diseased ones. On March 11, 1960, at the National Institutes of Health, Nina Starr Braunwald performed the first successful mitral valve replacement with an artificial one of her own design, a polyurethane valve with woven Teflon laces she had hand-sewn herself. (Cimons, 6/10)

Many health care professionals believe that concussion patients don’t need or cannot benefit from subsequent visits and treatment. ... About 4 million Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries per year. Of the patients in Manley’s study, only 2 in 5 saw a doctor or other medical provider within three months of being injured. (Rubenstein and Ma, 6/9)

Despite being in and out of hospitals since the age of 16, one of Harmon Clarke’s biggest fears is having an intravenous line inserted into his arm. The 34-year-old resident of Los Angeles has had more than 30 surgeries related to his Crohn’s disease, but getting stuck with an IV needle has never gotten less stressful. “Because of my Crohn’s I get really dehydrated, which makes it really challenging to get an IV in,” Clarke said. “One time, literally eight different IV nurses had come into my room trying to get a line in, and I’m in tears. I can’t do my procedure or surgery until we get this done, and it was just like a nightmare.” (Kim, 6/9)

In April, a report funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota documented a disproportionate prevalence of preventable disease and death within racial and ethnic minority communities in the state. It is one reason why Cain Hayes, the chief operating officer at Eagan-based Blue Cross, believes health insurers need to tackle the ongoing problem of racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States. (Snowbeck, 6/9)

It’s hard to imagine a world without emergency medical services — the first responders, surgeons and other professionals who can mean the difference between life and death for the people they help. But not that long ago, the field didn’t exist. Such things as ambulances, emergency defibrillators and walkie-talkies are all relatively new creations. Even CPR, one of the most well-known techniques, didn’t exist until 1960. So how did the idea of emergency medical services get its start? The National EMS Museum answers that question. (Blakemore, 6/10)

Children who eat poor diets are more likely to be bullies at school, according to research from Saint Louis University. The study, which used data from a World Health Organization survey of 150,000 children across 40 countries in Europe and North America, examined the relationship between diet and bullying behavior. (Farzan, 6/9)

That quintessential summer get-together — a barbecue with friends and family — generally generates good-time feelings, but not always. About 16,600 people go to an emergency room each year because of an accident tied to grilling, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. About half of those injuries are thermal burns, caused by fire or contact with something ultrahot. Of the contact injuries, a third are to children younger than 5, hurt when they bump, touch or fall on some part of the grill or hot coals. Each year, fire departments respond to an average of 9,600 fires related to home grilling, reports the National Fire Protection Association. With gas grills, which account for about 80 percent of such fires, a leak or break is most often to blame. Whether gas- or charcoal-fed, grills that are not cleaned often trigger fires because of a buildup of grease and fat from previous cookings. When cleaning a grill, though, be careful with wire-bristle brushes: A bristle left lingering on the grilling surface could stick to a piece of food and be swallowed. (Searing, 6/9)

Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist whose incisive critiques made him an influential voice in Washington for decades, said Friday he is battling an aggressive form of cancer and his doctors have told him he has weeks to live. “This is the final verdict. My fight is over,” the 68-year-old wrote in a farewell note to his readers.” He added, “I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny.” (Alpert, 6/8)

Kaiser Health News: Poison Ivy, A ‘Familiar Stranger’ That Could Ruin Your Summer

It was a close encounter in 2012 that made microbiologist John Jelesko take an interest in poison ivy. The Virginia Tech associate professor was cutting up a downed tree with an electric chainsaw. What he didn’t realize was that his power cable had been dragging through poison ivy. So, at the end of the day, as he coiled the cord around his palm and elbow, he inadvertently launched a career-bending science experiment. (Farmer, 6/11)