Next up: Mosquitoes, chickenpox, sheep wool. People can name a hundred things that can make them itchy, but no one can tell you why. It's had scientists scratching their heads for years. Has it got ...

Under most circumstances, scratching an itch can offer momentary relief. Typically, itches are experienced due to an external irritant, such as a scratchy sweater or a bug landing on the skin. This ...

I remember it well: our dark winter of itch when the kids were small. It started with a note sent home—years before the pandemic—that my child had been exposed, not to a deadly virus but to lice.