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 ...

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.

So you had a whole day without a single itchy peep from your feet. And when you get into bed at night, all of a sudden your ...