Health & Medicine
- 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.
- Brain
High fat diet removes brain’s natural brake on overeating
At least in mice, high-fat diets promote overeating. And the problem appears to trace to changes that these foods make to cells in an appetite-control center within the brain.
- Microbes
A surface crater in viruses may be key to keeping colds from spreading
A newly discovered pit on the surface of one family of viruses could help scientists fight the common cold and other infections.
- Health & Medicine
A sixth finger can prove extra handy
Two people born with six fingers on each hand adeptly control their extra digits, using them to do tasks better than five-fingered hands.
- Health & Medicine
A fungus plus a spider toxin equals a weapon to kill mosquitoes
A new weapon could help fight mosquitoes that spread malaria. It’s an engineered fungus that infects the insects — then kills them with a spider poison.
- Microbes
Gut bacteria may affect how well your medicines work
Gut bacteria can chemically change the drugs people swallow. ID-ing a patient’s microbes might one day help doctors prescribe the most effective drugs.
- Health & Medicine
By the numbers: How infectious measles and other diseases spread
A number called R0 measures how contagious an infectious disease is. It helps explain why measles is so dangerous.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Obesogens
The chemicals can change how the body stores fat or how often someone feels hungry — increasing the risk for obesity.
- Health & Medicine
Bats are now the primary source of U.S. rabies deaths
Although human rabies is not common in the United States, it still occurs. But here dogs are no longer the likely source of this oft-lethal infection: Bats are.
- Earth
Antibiotics pollute many of the world’s rivers
A survey of 165 rivers finds unsafe levels of antibiotics at one in six sites tested. Such pollution can leave germs resistant (unharmed) by the drugs.
- Health & Medicine
Fighting spider-fear with a little Spider-Man
Many people are afraid of spiders or ants. Watching a movie clip with the critters in it might help make people more comfortable with them, a new study shows.
