In trying to understand the role of prostaglandins – a family of fatty compounds key to the cardiovascular system – in blood pressure maintenance, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School…

More restaurants and vending machines offer healthy choices these days, so why do Americans' waistlines continue to expand? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that some efforts to…

In Sierra Leone mothers use caustic soda to home-make soap, and children often exchange it for water and drink it. During 2008 alone, 249 children have been admitted in the surgical pediatric unit of…

My mailbox has an automated spam filter, but often some smarter messages seep through and end in there; since, however, I already receive hundreds of emails a day, I am not too happy to entertain…

Drugs and radiotherapy given for cancer can cause unpleasant side effects such as nausea and vomiting, mouth sores, dermatitis, and menopausal symptoms. Around a third of patients with cancer use…

Three recent African trials support male circumcision for reducing the risk of contracting HIV in heterosexual men. After including new data from these trials in their review, Cochrane Researchers…

It is a fact of science that people who consume fewer calories than they burn will lose weight.  It is 100 percent effective.   But it is equally well-known that some people cannot do that…

Can we really design an insecticide that gets around the evolution of resistance? Check out this paper in PLoS biology today on how to make an evolution-proof insecticide against malaria-bearing…

Acupuncture cannot be shown to have any positive effect on hot flashes during the menopause, says the conclusion of a systematic review of literature by three groups in Daejon, Busan (South Korea)…

It’s the same story over and over: he enters a new environment, wastes it, and grabs what he needs from his surroundings to make a clever escape. But this time there’s less mullet and more microscope…