Science News

Changes in how medical diagnoses are coded under the latest international disease classification system - better known as the ICD-10 codes - may complicate the assessment of hospital safety, say researchers.

In the last few centuries, medical advances have greatly lengthened lifespans. Among other causes, a central driver has been improved care at the beginning of life, when declining infant mortality rates have boosted aver...

A fourth doctor from Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola and will be evacuated from the country for treatment abroad, according to the Associated Press. Dr. Olivette Busk is the first non-Westerner to be transport...

The Aug. 24 Napa earthquake woke several small, previously unrecognized Napa Valley faults, according to the first results from a high-flying NASA radar instrument.

By examining leopard poop in rural India, scientists discovered that the big cats have a surprising favorite food: domestic dogs.

Any armchair explorer with an Internet connection can now explore the pyramids of Egypt, thanks to new images on Google Street View.

Solar flares are powerful blasts of radiation unleashed by the sun. When aimed directly at Earth, these eruptions can trigger geomagnetic storms and knock out power grids and communications. Here are some spectacular pho...

Doctors in China were surprised to find that a young woman who had lived a normal life for more than two decades was actually missing an important part of her brain, according to a new report of her case.

A man's undiagnosed sleepwalking nearly turned life-threatening when he sleepwalked off a 60-foot cliff while camping.

Signals from the bacteria that harmlessly -- and often beneficially -- inhabit the human gastrointestinal tract boost the immune system's ability to kill a major respiratory pathogen, Klebsiella pneumoniae, according to ...

Inflammation may be the reason high blood sugar levels damage blood vessels, researchers report. Anti-inflammatory medications might someday be used to reduce the risk of blood vessel disease in people with diabetes, the...

Many factors could lead to poor nutrition in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, including motor difficulties with swallowing and chewing (dysphagia), cutting, and bringing food to the mouth. PD-related constipation and d...

Meditation might be a path to migraine relief, according to a new study. "For the approximate 36 million Americans who suffer from migraines, there is big need for non-pharmaceutical treatment strategies, and doctors and...

In treating cancer, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are two of the best weapons in a doctor's arsenal. Reports have shown that ideally, both methods would be employed at the same time. But doing so produces levels of toxic...

A collaborative study has measured multimorbidity -- multiple diseases or medical conditions co-occurring in a single patient -- and has determined which combinations of medical conditions are more prevalent by age, sex,...

Religion and politics have little effect on morality, a new study suggests.

Physicians report many barriers keep them from giving patients guidance on genetic risks, disease, according to new research. Medical genetics medicine has traditionally been used to identify and diagnose rare diseases, ...

New research offers hope for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers there have shown that a breathing-based meditation practice called Sudarshan Kriya Yoga can be an effective treatment for PTSD...

How did a mystery mineral acquire remarkable properties not mimicked in the lab until 30 years ago? Finding out took one cosmologist to the ends of the Earth (full text available to subscribers)

Entanglement used to be the gold standard of the quantum world's weirdness, now a new and noisy phenomenon could give us all the benefits with less of the fuss (full text available to subscribers)

Fermilab physicist Don Lincoln explains the idea of a metastable universe, what it has to do with the Higgs boson, and why we're still in good shape. If you’re a science enthusiast, this week you have likely encountere...

For the first time, scientists have turned human skin cells into transplantable white blood cells, soldiers of the immune system that fight infections and invaders. The work could let researchers create therapies that in...