All Stories by Brian Vastag
- Health & Medicine
Smoking ups risk for type 2 diabetes
Smoking increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by up to 61 percent.
- Health & Medicine
Addiction Alleviator? Hallucinogen’s popularity grows
The unsanctioned use of an obscure hallucinogen, ibogaine, to treat addiction has exploded recently.
- Health & Medicine
Not Yet: CDC panel questions antidepressant gene test
A genetic test designed to tailor drug treatment for depression offers little clinical value, says a CDC panel.
- Anthropology
Ancient Ailment? Early human may have carried tuberculosis
A 500,000-year-old Homo erectus skull from Turkey may show telltale signs of tuberculosis, by far the earliest such evidence of the disease.
- Health & Medicine
Big kids at risk for heart disease
Overweight children grow up to have an elevated risk for blocked coronary arteries as adults, a long-term Danish study finds.
- Health & Medicine
The Long Road to Beta Cells
In their quest to cure type 1 diabetes, scientists are finding that turning stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells is a lot harder than it first appeared.
- Health & Medicine
Sickle Save: Skin cells fix anemia in mice
Using a new technique to turn skin cells into stem cells, scientists have corrected sickle cell anemia in mice.
- Health & Medicine
Malaria’s new guises
Scientists have observed Plasmodium falciparum enjoying three distinct lifestyles—two of which have never been seen before—in the blood of infected children.
- Anthropology
Northwest Passage: Americas populated via Alaska, genetics show
A single population of prehistoric Siberians crossed the Bering Strait into Alaska and fanned out to North and South America, a new genetic analysis of living Native Americans suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Wrong Way: HIV vaccine hinders immunity in mice
An HIV vaccine hurts, not helps, the immune systems of mice, say scientists.
- Health & Medicine
9/11 reflux
Up to 20 percent of 9/11 workers in New York City experience symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease, also called acid reflux.
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Flawed Stem Cells Yield Fragile X Clues: Researchers study genetic disorder via discarded embryos
The most common inherited cause of mental retardation arises when a mutated gene is shut down early in embryonic development.
