One common experience that tourists encounter while traveling far from home is gut-wrenching diarrhea. In some developing countries, it's so common that it's picked up geographic eponyms, like Montezuma's revenge in Mexico or Delhi belly on the Indian subcontinent.Rates of disease can be amazingly high. On average, 40 percent of U.S. visitors to Mexico develop the runs. Meanwhile, some 50 to 70 percent of Europeans visiting such high-risk destinations as India and Kenya develop diarrhea during a 2-week stay, according to a 2000 report by an international group of researchers.Now, data emerge c...

Anyone who has raised tomatoes in a moist environment knows the tell-tale sign: Overnight, a ripe, juicy orb sustains a huge, oozing wound. If you arrive early, you might catch the dastardly culprit: a slug.Who would have thought that a defense was as close as your coffee cup?Federal scientists have discovered that the same chemical that provides the pick-me-up in a cup of java is a deadly turn-off to snails and slugs. Caffeine renders their food unpalatable. Applied to their soil, the stimulant causes snails and slugs to writhe uncontrollably. At the proper dose, these mollusks succumb to the...

Anyone who has raised tomatoes in a moist environment knows the tell-tale sign: Overnight, a ripe, juicy orb sustains a huge, oozing wound. If you arrive early, you might catch the dastardly culprit: a slug.Who would have thought that a defense was as close as your coffee cup?Federal scientists have discovered that the same chemical that provides the pick-me-up in a cup of java is a deadly turn-off to snails and slugs. Caffeine renders their food unpalatable. Applied to their soil, the stimulant causes snails and slugs to writhe uncontrollably. At the proper dose, these mollusks succumb to the...

Most people consider the continued spread of Africanized honeybees in the Americas as horrifying news. Nicknamed killer bees, these notorious social insects rile into stinging mobs with little provocation. But new research finds evidence that these irritable insects have been performing a hitherto unrecognized service for people around the world. They've helped keep down the cost of growing high-quality coffee.Although coffee plants are self-pollinating, David W. Roubik of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama, reports that coffee-bean yields skyrocket when the shrubs' ...

Although the artist Peter Paul Rubens glorified zaftig female nudes on his 17th-century canvases, such Rubenesque figures have definitely fallen from vogue. Today, thin is in.For those women whose proportions fall outside the fatfree ideal, here’s one consolation: Your outsized physique appears to put you at decreased risk of developing ovarian cancer.Overall, this cancer is somewhat rare. Each year, roughly 23,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with the disease—compared with 192,000 diagnosed with breast cancer, 52,000 diagnosed with colon cancer, and 79,000 diagnosed with lung cancer. However, ova...

Although the artist Peter Paul Rubens glorified zaftig female nudes on his 17th-century canvases, such Rubenesque figures have definitely fallen from vogue. Today, thin is in.For those women whose proportions fall outside the fatfree ideal, here’s one consolation: Your outsized physique appears to put you at decreased risk of developing ovarian cancer.Overall, this cancer is somewhat rare. Each year, roughly 23,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with the disease—compared with 192,000 diagnosed with breast cancer, 52,000 diagnosed with colon cancer, and 79,000 diagnosed with lung cancer. However, ova...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...

If food that was going to leaveyou with gut-wrenchingcramps—or more—tastedsickening, few people wouldindulge. The problem, ofcourse, is that sickening foodcan taste quite scrumptious.Indeed, when the hour ofreckoning arrives, many of usdon't suspect what hitus—mistaking our discomfortfor a stress headache, bout offlu, or jittery stomach triggeredby nerves. Doctors, too, canmisread the symptoms. Indeed,the surest way to diagnose foodpoisoning is to test for telltalegerms in the stool of patientswho report suspicioussymptoms—a procedure thatphysicians don't routinelyemploy.While all of this make...