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From “Scientists create hybrid flu that can go airborne”, news article in Nature by Ed Yong, 2 May 2013 (original article here) Creating a “hybrid flu” may seem outlandish or irresponsible without additional information.…

Do you get headaches often? Do they interfere with your life? Repeated headaches and migraines have a significant effect on quality-of-life and productivity at the personal level. Collectively migraines and other associated symptoms cost the US economy…

Meditation has ancient, religious roots, but it has also become a secular practice, implemented to promote wellbeing and to treat depression and anxiety. Skeptics might be wary of this jump from spiritual origins to medical treatment, but mounting…

You may have recently heard about cases of acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) being cured in a few adults and children using a new type of cell therapy [1]. In these studies, scientists took a patient’s own immune cells, altered their genetic material so that…

They say that the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach. A more biologically accurate metaphor would be that your gut holds several keys—not to your heart, but to your brain. Remarkably, the gut is capable of altering the brain’s ability to process…

Scientists can study stress by observing people who suffer from it. What are the physiological changes these people undergo, if any? Is their appetite normal? And what about the heart rate? Lots of observations are possible, meaning there a lot of ways…

-- With increased air travel, the emergence of infectious diseases anywhere in the world is a global concern. A recent outbreak garnering attention is the emergence of a SARS-like virus in the United Kingdom. Many symptoms of this new virus, including…

-- Of the five senses, sight and hearing are often felt to be the most important. They allow us to interact with each other and our environment, and the loss of either sense can be devastating. Worldwide, an estimated 39 million people have severe…

-- Less than three weeks ago, the Northeast US was slammed by the largest blizzard in years: winter storm Nemo. Swarms of people ran to the grocery stores and gas stations to stock up on food, batteries, flashlights, clean water supplies, and gas in…

-- Have you ever considered that your body is its own ecosystem? Our bodies are host to countless microbial organisms, which live in and on every conceivable part of our body and outnumber our human cells ten to one. We depend on these microbes for a…