Health & Safety

Graphic: How Prepared Is Your State For The Next Outbreak?

Is Your State Ready For The Next Infectious Outbreak? Probably Not

4:12pm December 19, 2014

by Nancy Shute

Public health has a way of slipping off the radar when people aren't scared about Ebola or anthrax. But that doesn't mean the threats go away. And most states aren't prepared for the next one.

The "Rusty Radiator" award for most offensive or stereotypical portrayal of the developing world in a fundraising video went to Feed a Child South Africa.

And The Award For Most Offensive Fundraising Video Goes To ...

2:34pm December 19, 2014

by Anders Kelto

If you're a charity that wants to help the developing world, you really, really, really don't want to win a "Rusty Radiator."

NYU Langone Medical Center is one of the teaching hospitals being penalized by Medicare for its rate of medical errors.

Health & Safety

Teaching Hospitals Hit Hardest By Medicare Fines For Patient Safety

2:18pm December 19, 2014

by Jordan Rau

Medicare will cut payments to hospitals with high rates of patient infections and injuries. Half of the nation's academic medical centers will be docked for making too many medical mistakes.

A body bag and some wooden sticks were used to fashion this stretcher.

A Nurse's Desperate Plea: Show Me The Ebola Money

11:30am December 19, 2014

by Karin Huster

Patients escape. Long gloves, chlorine and toilets are in short supply. Despite promises of international aid, the essentials of medical care are still missing at one Sierra Leone treatment center.

A vigil is held against violence in Cali, Colombia. The country has seen some 1,090 homicides this year.

Death Comes In Many Different Ways. And Some Are A Bit Surprising

8:55am December 19, 2014

by Marc Silver

A new report looks at the top causes of death in 188 countries. Infectious diseases are less of a threat than in 1990 — but please, look both ways before you cross the street.

Health & Safety

Countering The 8-Hour Sleep Schedule

6:05pm December 18, 2014

Many assume that sleeping 8 or 9 consecutive hours at night is instinctual. But in a recent essay in Aeon, Karen Emslie says that this sleep schedule is in fact distinctly modern.

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Rob Knight, co-founder of the American Gut Project at the University of Colorado in Boulder, works in the lab where the samples are processed.

Behind The Scenes At The Lab That Fingerprints Microbiomes

5:32pm December 18, 2014

by Katherine Harmon Courage

Inside the lab, a lone technician sorts through new samples, snipping off swab heads intentionally fouled with fecal material. One head goes to cold storage and the other is processed for sequencing.

The updated avian tree shows how many different kinds of birds evolved quickly after a mass extinction 66 million years ago.

Birds Of A Feather Aren't Necessarily Related

5:25pm December 18, 2014

by Geoff Brumfiel

Geneticists have revised the evolutionary tree of birds, revealing some unlikely relationships.

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A transmission electron micrograph shows Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus particles (colorized yellow).

NIH Allows Restart Of MERS Research That Had Been Questioned

3:26pm December 18, 2014

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

The National Institutes of Health has approved requests for waivers from a moratorium on experiments that aim to make the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome more infectious in mice.

Nurse Julietta Losoyo gives Derek Lucero a whooping cough vaccination at the San Diego Public Health Center on Dec. 10.

California Whooping Cough Infections Run High Among Latino Babies

12:22pm December 18, 2014

by April Dembosky

Public health officials in California are trying to understand why Latino babies are contracting whooping cough at much higher rates than other babies.