Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    50 years ago, computers helped speed up drug discovery

    In 1974, a computer program helped researchers search for promising cancer drugs. Today, AI is helping speed up drug discovery.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  2. Health & Medicine

    The United States was on course to eliminate syphilis. Now it’s surging

    Science News spoke with expert Allison Agwu about what’s driving the surge and how we can better prevent the disease.

    By Aimee Cunningham
  3. Health & Medicine

    Messed-up metabolism during development may lead guts to coil the wrong way

    Tadpoles exposed to a metabolism-disrupting herbicide had malformed intestines, providing clues to a human condition called intestinal malrotation.

    By Helen Bradshaw
  4. Health & Medicine

    Taking a weight-loss drug reduced a craving for opioids

    Early results from 20 people with opioid use disorder raise hopes that popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy can tackle opioid addiction, too.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  5. Health & Medicine

    Newfound immune cells are responsible for long-lasting allergies

    A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  6. Health & Medicine

    U.S. opioid deaths are out of control. Can safe injection sites help?

    A new NIH study will evalute the only two officially sanctioned sites, in New York City, and a future site in Providence, R.I.

    By Tara Haelle
  7. Neuroscience

    A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand

    A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.

    By Simon Makin
  8. Health & Medicine

    A 25-year-effort uncovers clues to unexplained deaths in children

    When Laura Gould’s daughter died in 1997, there was almost no research in unexpected deaths in children older than one. Gould helped change that.

    By Aimee Cunningham
  9. Microbes

    Bird flu viruses may pack tools that help them infect human cells

    Bringing along their own ANP32 proteins may give avian flu viruses a jump-start on copying themselves to adapt to and infect humans and other animals.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  10. Health & Medicine

    Under very rare conditions, Alzheimer’s disease may be transmitted

    Alzheimer’s isn’t contagious. But contaminated growth hormone injections caused early-onset Alzheimer’s in some recipients, a new study suggests.

    By Laura Sanders
  11. Humans

    Here’s why COVID-19 isn’t seasonal so far

    Human immunity and behavior may be more important than weather for driving seasonality when it comes to COVID-19.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  12. Health & Medicine

    Is aging without illness possible?

    Researchers are harnessing basic biology to develop drugs that foster healthy aging. Just don’t call them antiaging pills.

    By Cassandra Willyard