Health & Medicine
- Earth
Americans consume some 70,000 microplastic particles a year
The average American consumes more than 70,000 microplastic particles a year. Scientists hope this estimate will spur others to look at health risks.
- Health & Medicine
Cool Jobs: Soaking in sweat
These three scientists are using sweat to hunt killers, detect illness and find out just how our species became such hairless, perspiring apes.
- Chemistry
Explainer: The bacteria behind your B.O.
Special glands in our armpits give us our signature stink. But it’s not our sweat that’s to blame. It’s the bacteria that gobble it up.
- Health & Medicine
Two Ebola treatments prove highly effective in a clinical trial
Preliminary data show that two treatments are highly effective at preventing death in Congo, where an Ebola epidemic is ongoing.
- Tech
A new electric surgery tool may someday fix nose, ear and eye problems
A new surgery tool uses electricity to reshape ear and nose tissue in minutes, without pain. Someday, it might even work on eyes to restore normal vision.
- Microbes
Obesity in mice caused by defects in their immune system
Subtle defects in T cell function alter rodents’ microbiome and fat absorption, providing hints of what might also be going on in people.
- Health & Medicine
Congo’s Ebola outbreak declared a public health emergency
Ebola cases in new regions prompted the World Health Organization to declare Congo’s yearlong outbreak a public health emergency.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Olfactory
Smell something? Thank your olfactory sense. Olfactory refers to anything having to do with smell.
- Science & Society
Beyond the El Paso shooting: Racist words and acts harm kids’ health
An author of a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics describes how racist acts, such as gun violence, can lead to lifelong physical and mental harm
- Brain
Lasers make mice hallucinate
Scientists used a technique called optogenetics to make mice “see” vertical or horizontal lines that didn’t actually exist.
- Health & Medicine
Measles can harm a child’s defense against other serious infections
Getting the measles can leave the body vulnerable to other infections months or even years later, scientists are finding.
- Animals
Some mama whales may whisper to keep calves safe from orcas
Even enormous whales can fear the threat that orcas pose to their babies. It now seems that some have taken to whispering to help their young stay off the killer whales’ radar.
