Feb 02 Does spaceflight accelerate immune system aging? By Justin Scuiletti According to a new study, spaceflight may have detrimental effects on the immune system. Continue reading
Feb 01 Carl Djerassi, a creator of the birth control pill, dies at 91 By Andrew Mach It was Dr. Carl Djerassi, along with two colleagues, who patented the key ingredient that led to the development of the oral contraceptive in 1951. Continue reading
Feb 01 Arizona officials on alert for measles as thousands flood in for Super Bowl By Rebecca Lee As thousands of Super Bowl XLIX spectators flood into Phoenix for Sunday's game, health officials are on high alert to make sure the flare-up of measles in the state doesn't get worse. Continue reading
Jan 31 Officials: Infected Amtrak rider may have exposed travelers to measles By Rebecca Lee New York officials said Saturday that a college student who had tested positive for measles was contagious when he boarded an Amtrak train last Sunday and potentially exposed thousands of travelers to the infection. Continue reading
Jan 31 White House to parents: science shows vaccines are effective By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Amid the measles outbreak stemming from California, the White House is telling parents that science indicates they should vaccinate their children. Continue reading
Jan 30 Watch 7:43 A push to use the human genome to make medicine more precise By PBS News Hour President Obama introduced a new plan to create a database of genetic information of a million Americans in order to better tailor medical treatments for groups of patients. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien interviews Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes… Continue watching
Jan 30 Are vitamin drinks providing too many vitamins? By Anna Sillers Health and sports drinks like Vitaminwater and Naked Juice pride themselves for containing high amounts of vitamins or nutrients. But a new study finds that many of these beverages often have excessive amounts of vitamins, sometimes in harmful dosages. Continue reading
Jan 29 Why hospice care could benefit your loved one sooner than you think By Leah Eskenazi, Family Caregiver Alliance Bettina’s dad Paul (89 years), a once robust and active man, was getting weaker every day due to heart failure. They met with a surgeon to consider his options but the proposed medical intervention was fraught with complications and no… Continue reading
Jan 28 Watch 7:28 Why a promising heroin addiction treatment is unavailable in many states By PBS News Hour More than 90 percent of heroin users who detox cold turkey will relapse, but there’s a dispute over prescribing drugs to help addicts get clean and keep them from deadly overdoses. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Ryan Grim of The Huffington… Continue watching
Jan 28 How playing with dangerous x-rays led to the discovery of radiation treatment for cancer By Dr. Howard Markel When the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s announced his discovery of the x-ray in December of 1895, he was lauded on the front page of just about every newspaper in the world. Indeed, many journalists called this phenomenon “X-Ray… Continue reading