Health & Safety

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.

When You Burn Off That Fat, Where Does It Go?

10:25am December 18, 2014

by Nancy Shute

Lipid metabolism may not sound sexy, but it's how you fit into that smaller pair of jeans. And when the fat says farewell, it has to go somewhere. Only some of it winds up in New Jersey.

A Pakistani health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child during a campaign in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan Keeps On Vaccinating Despite Tough Terrain And Terror Threat

9:40am December 18, 2014

by Jason Beaubien

Just getting a measles vaccine to a child in Pakistan was once an impossible dream. Despite many obstacles, health workers have made great progress in stopping infectious diseases.

Sandra Lopez (left) and her dog, Coco, greet hospice nurse Heather Meyerend last fall. In the weeks before Lopez died, Meyerend stopped by weekly to check her physical health, pain levels and medications.

Too Little, Too Late For Many New Yorkers Seeking Hospice

4:27pm December 17, 2014

by Fred Mogul

Evidence shows hospice care can extend life and save money, but only if patients and doctors dare ask for the help. One New Yorker said hospice gave her back life at peace, pain subdued.

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