Health & Medicine

  1. Animals

    Some spikes in malaria cases may be tied to amphibian die-offs

    Amphibian deaths from a fungal disease may have led to more mosquitoes — and an increase in malaria cases in Costa Rica and Panama.

    By Aimee Cunningham
  2. Health & Medicine

    How wriggling, blood-eating parasitic worms alter the body

    Parasitic worms eat blood and make people sick, but they may also help prevent or treat some diseases.

    By Kathryn Hulick
  3. Health & Medicine

    Scientists Say: Liver

    This organ in the upper-right side of the belly does many essential jobs, such as cleaning blood and producing bile.

    By Maria Temming
  4. Health & Medicine

    How sunshine may make boys feel hungrier

    Males eat more on long summer days, but females do not. Hormones may explain this difference.

    By Silke Schmidt
  5. Genetics

    For some kids, their rock-star hair comes naturally

    A variant of a gene involved in hair-shaft formation was linked to most of the uncombable-hair-syndrome cases analyzed in a recent study.

    By Meghan Rosen
  6. Genetics

    Examining Neandertal and Denisovan DNA wins a 2022 Nobel Prize

    Svante Pääbo figured out how to examine the genetic material from these hominid ‘cousins’ of modern humans.

    By Tina Hesman Saey and Aimee Cunningham
  7. Animals

    Dogs and other animals could aid the spread of monkeypox

    Now that monkeypox has spread to a dog, researchers fear other species could help the virus become widespread outside of Africa for the first time.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  8. Animals

    Explainer: What is mpox (formerly monkeypox)?

    Once rare, the viral disease monkeypox exploded onto the global scene for the first time in 2022.

    By Tina Hesman Saey and Janet Raloff
  9. Chemistry

    Recipes for modern beauty products aren’t so modern after all

    An art historian has combined forces with chemists to uncover the science behind cosmetics used about 500 years ago.

    By Rina Diane Caballar
  10. Health & Medicine

    New stick-on ‘sonar’ device lets you watch your own heart beat

    This wearable patch might one day make personalized medicine affordable almost anywhere in the world.

    By Asa Stahl
  11. Climate

    Heat waves appear more life-threatening than scientists once thought

    This is bad news as a warming planet leads to growing numbers of excessive heat waves — and millions more people facing potentially deadly temperatures.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  12. Environment

    Wildfire smoke seems to pose its biggest health risk to kids

    New studies, some of them in young monkeys, point to vulnerabilities affecting kids' airways, brains and immune systems.

    By Megan Sever