Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed

The Washington Post: ‘Medical Moms’ Share Their Kids’ Illnesses With Millions. At What Cost?
When Bella was born in 2013, she didn’t leave the hospital for the first two years of her life because of a combination of a rare form of dwarfism, bowel disease and autoimmune disease. Kyla Thomson, Bella’s mom, started sharing online as a way to update her family members. As Bella grew and changed, so did the internet. Kyla moved her updates from blogs to Facebook to Instagram, eventually landing on TikTok, where she has amassed 5.7 million followers. Fans watch Bella and Kyla dance and joke and follow Bella’s hospital stays, ambulance rides and nightly intravenous medication rituals. (Latifi, 5/11)

The New York Times: The Mother Who Changed: A Story of Dementia
As cognitive decline began to alter who Diane Norelius was, her adult daughters and her boyfriend wound up in a bitter dispute over which version of her should get to decide what she wanted. (Engelhart, 5/9)

The New York Times: Hearing Aids Are Changing. Their Users Are, Too.
Ayla Wing’s middle school students don’t always know what to make of their 26-year-old teacher’s hearing aids. The most common response she hears: “Oh, my grandma has them, too.” But grandma’s hearing aids were never like this: Bluetooth-enabled and connected to her phone, they allow Ms. Wing to toggle with one touch between custom settings. She can shut out the world during a screeching subway ride, hear her friends in noisy bars during a night out and even understand her students better by switching to “mumbly kids.”(Bohra, 5/6)

The New York Times: Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Holmes blends in with the other moms here, in a bucket hat and sunglasses, her newborn strapped to her chest and swathed in a Baby Yoda nursing blanket. We walk past a family of caged orangutans and talk about how Ms. Holmes is preparing to go to prison for one of the most notorious cases of corporate fraud in recent history. In case you’re wondering, Ms. Holmes speaks in a soft, slightly low, but totally unremarkable voice, no hint of the throaty contralto she used while running her defunct blood-testing start-up Theranos. (Chozick, 5/7)

The Washington Post: Fake Sign Language Is Spreading On TikTok. Deaf People Are Worried. 
Anthony Eagle Jr. is big on TikTok. He boasts over 850,000 followers, many of whom love the way he performs sign language renditions of songs. There’s just one problem — the sign language is sometimes wrong. When Eagle, 39, of Winston-Salem, N.C., signs the song, “Love the Way You Lie,” his rendition is riddled with mistakes, like signing the word “lie” with two hands in the wrong position. To a deaf person who uses sign language, it looks like gibberish. (Morris, 5/8)

The Washington Post: Oregon Doctors Found World's Smallest Skin Cancer Spot On Woman’s Face 
When Christy Staats visited a dermatologist for a red spot under her right eye, she expected a lecture about wearing sunscreen — but not a diagnosis. Alexander Witkowski, a dermatologist at Oregon Health & Science University, agreed the spot wasn’t a problem when he inspected Staats in 2021.But there was a different, smaller mole that caught his attention. The other spot was 0.65 millimeters in diameter — about the size of a needle tip — and had a slightly different pigment than a normal mole. So Witkowski looked at it through a microscope. ... Last week, Guinness World Records recognized Witkowski and his team of researchers for discovering the smallest known skin cancer spot. (Melnick, 5/9)

The Atlantic: Eat More MSG—You Know, For Your Health 
The much-maligned seasoning could be the secret to eating less salt. (Tayag, 5/11)

Reuters: At Musk’s Brain-Chip Startup, Animal-Testing Panel Is Rife With Potential Conflicts
Elon Musk’s brain-implant venture has filled an animal-research oversight board with company insiders who may stand to benefit financially as the firm reaches development goals, according to company documents and interviews with six current and former employees. Such oversight boards are required by federal law for organizations experimenting on certain types of animals. The panels are charged with ensuring proper animal care, high research standards, and the reliability of data that helps regulators decide whether drugs or medical devices are safe for human testing. (Levy and Taylor, 5/9)

The Atlantic: 23 Pandemic Decisions That Actually Went Right
Not every lesson has to be a cautionary tale, however, and the end of the COVID-19 emergency may be, if nothing else, a chance to consider which pandemic policies, decisions, and ideas actually worked out for the best. Put another way: In the face of so much suffering, what went right? (Gutman-Wei, Laskow, Tayag, Wu and Zhang, 5/9)