In a Genomic Psychiatry Interview published on 5 May 2026, Dr. Dilek Colak, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, traces her path from a northern Turkish town where a neighbor boy with mental illness watched the other children from his balcony, to a laboratory that now probes how glial cells and RNA regulation shape autism and schizophrenia. Dr. Colak argues that scientific excellence is measured through too narrow a lens, calls for holistic frameworks that honor clinical expertise and locally relevant research, and names a private fear familiar to many parents in science.

Microplastics and nanoplastics now contaminate every human compartment that has been examined. Decedent brain tissue carries seven to thirty times the concentration found in liver or kidney. The burden rose by approximately fifty percent between 2016 and 2024. The heaviest loads sit in the brains of donors with documented dementia. Recent prospective cohort data link these particles to fourfold increases in the composite risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, or death. A new Perspective in the inaugural issue of Brain Health, published by Genomic Press, argues that the field must now move past alarm and toward the three priorities that follow from the evidence: validated measurement, polymer-specific mechanism, and population-scale removal.

A 2019 vaping-related health scare reshaped how many smokers view the risks of e-cigarettes – and those perceptions still linger today. New research from MUSC Hollings Cancer Center found that smokers came to see e-cigarettes as equally or more dangerous relative to combustible cigarettes, even after the true cause of the illness was identified, which may influence decisions about quitting or switching.

“That period really changed how people think about these products,” said lead researcher Tracy Smith, Ph.D., who co-leads the Hollings Cancer Prevention and Control Program. “Even after we learned more about what caused the illness, those perceptions didn’t fully reset.”