Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    To remember something new: Exercise!

    People who exercised strenuously for a half hour after learning something new cemented those memories. But the trick: Wait four hours before getting the heart pumping vigorously.

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  2. Chemistry

    E-cigs create toxic vapors from harmless e-liquids

    New study finds a primary source of toxic vaping compounds. It’s the heat-driven breakdown of the liquids that hold nicotine and flavorings. And older, dirtier e-cigs make higher amounts of the toxic chemicals.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    To teens, benefits are more persuasive than risks

    When potential rewards and punishments are equal, teens are more likely to make decisions based on those rewards than on concerns over any risks, a new study shows.

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  4. Environment

    Scientists Say: Poisonous

    A poison-arrow frog is poisonous, but a rattlesnake is not. What’s the difference? It’s how the poison is delivered.

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  5. Brain

    Hormone affects how teens’ brains control emotions

    Using scans of brain activity, scientists show that surging hormones drive where emotions get processed in a teen’s brain.

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  6. Science & Society

    Strict gun laws ended mass shootings in Australia

    Australia enacted tough gun laws in 1996, which cut gun exposure — especially to semiautomatic weapons. Since then, new data show, that nation has experienced zero mass shootings.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Zika vaccines look promising

    As a Zika epidemic surges through Brazil and northward, scientists are looking for drugs to keep more people from becoming infected. Several vaccines show promise in early tests — but none has yet been tried in people.

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  8. Animals

    This mammal has the world’s slowest metabolism

    A sloth species manages to exist with a super-slow metabolism by moving little and using its environment for heating and cooling its body.

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  9. Animals

    Catching ‘Dory’ fish can poison entire coral reef ecosystems

    More than half of saltwater-aquarium fish sold in the United States may have been caught in the wild using cyanide, new data show.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Adult diseases may be linked to childhood weight

    Danish scientists find that very overweight kids grow up with a heightened risk of colon cancer and stroke.

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  11. Brain

    Teen drinking may damage ability to cope with stress

    Teens are often tempted to drink alcohol. Drinking too much — and repeatedly — can hurt their ability to manage stress, a study in rats indicates.

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  12. Tech

    Helping MS patients get a grip on things

    An Irish teen has invented a device that helps people with multiple sclerosis address the “clenched fist” symptom that afflicts most such patients.

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