All Stories by Ben Harder
- Health & Medicine
Amid bleak outlook, antibiotic shines
Encouraging research on a novel antibiotic offers a rare shot of optimism at a time when existing microbe-killing compounds are losing effectiveness and efforts to develop replacements are flagging.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists retract ecstasy drug finding
Scientists have recanted a controversial report on the dangers of the drug commonly called ecstasy.
- Health & Medicine
Checkmate for a Child-Killer?
If a new generation of vaccines pans out, the days of rotavirus, which kills at least 450,000 infants and children every year by causing severe diarrhea, may be numbered.
- Health & Medicine
Control of animal epidemic slowed human illness
Control measures implemented in response to the devastating animal epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease can apparently help curtail the spread of the cryptosporidium parasite, which sickens people.
- Earth
Exposure to phthalate may shorten pregnancy
Babies exposed to a common phthalate plasticizer before birth spend a week less in the womb than do those without evidence of exposure.
- Health & Medicine
Zealous Adherence: Erratic HIV therapy hasn’t fueled resistance
Among people infected with HIV, those who don't consistently take their antiretroviral drugs as prescribed are no more likely to develop drug-resistant HIV than are patients who adhere to their treatment schedule.
- Health & Medicine
Guggul extract fails its cholesterol test
Guggul extract, long used in parts of Asia and gaining popularity in Western countries as a weapon against high cholesterol, does not appear to work.
- Health & Medicine
Tuesday Can Be Fat, but Weekends Are More Fattening
Unsuccessful weight watchers are well aware that the winter holiday season can bestow, besides gifts, a few extra pounds. But according to Barry M. Popkin of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, people seem to approach every weekend as a holiday: They eat and drink too much. For the average adult in the […]
- Health & Medicine
Viruses, but not bacteria, tied to mental decline
Past infection by multiple common viruses may contribute to cognitive decline in some elderly people.
- Health & Medicine
Predicting Prostate Cancer’s Moves
To guide treatment decisions in individual cases of prostate cancer, medical researchers are using gene-expression profiling and other novel techniques to develop better predictive markers of how a given tumor will behave.
- Health & Medicine
Brawny Brains: Creatine pills may aid memory and cognition
The popular muscle-building supplement creatine can boost performance on mental tests.
- Anthropology
New World Newcomers: Men’s DNA supports recent settlement of the Americas
New data on genetic differences among the Y chromosomes of Asian and Native American men support the notion that people first reached the Americas less than 20,000 years ago.
