The test, dubbed VirScan, and research surrounding it is the subject of a new report published in the journal Science. For the study, scientists screened sera, a part of the blood, from 569 people in the U.S., South Africa, Thailand, and Peru and tested for more than 200 types of viruses.
A mother who didn't believe in vaccines for years is now writing about her experience after all seven of her children became sick with whooping cough and hopes to inspire other parents to reconsider vaccination.
Scientists said Wednesday a new drug tested on monkeys provided an astonishingly effective shield against an animal version of the AIDS virus, a major gain in the quest for an HIV vaccine.
Macaque monkeys given the drug were able to fend off high, repeated doses of the simian version of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), they reported in the journal Nature.
President Obama approved a bill on Monday banning soaps, toothpastes, and bodywashes that contain a harmful ingredient.
That ingredient is microbeads - tiny, nearly impossible-to-dissolve plastic particles that enter water streams by the billions. The beads are typically found in cleansing products because they can be used as tiny scrubbers, helping to wipe away oil and dirt from the skin or teeth.
A recent study found as many as 1.7 million of the tiny particles per square kilometer in the Great Lakes region's Lake Erie, where much of our trash ends up.
The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but they're also the keepers of all kinds of secrets-secrets our eye doctors are in on but we typically aren't. Those little tidbits of info our baby blues (or greens or browns) are hiding are actually chock-full of important details, not only about our eyes and vision, but about our overall health.
In July, the AP reported that its first round of tests showed disease-causing viruses directly linked to human sewage at levels up to 1.7 million times what would be considered highly alarming in the U.S. or Europe. Experts said athletes were competing in the viral equivalent of raw sewage and exposure to dangerous health risks almost certain.
The results sent shockwaves through the global athletic community, with sports officials pledging to do their own viral testing to ensure the waters were safe for competition in next year's games. Those promises took on further urgency in August, after pre-Olympic rowing and sailing events in Rio led to illnesses among athletes nearly double the acceptable limit in the U.S. for swimmers in recreational waters.
When women smoked daily during pregnancy, researchers identified 6,073 places where their babies' DNA was methylated differently from the DNA of nonsmokers' infants.
Many of the differences were found on or near a collection of genes related to lung and nervous system development, smoking-related cancers and birth defects such as cleft lip and palate.
Scientists are now one step closer to understanding how genetic mutations contribute to autism. In a study released Thursday in the journal Cell, experts from UNC School of Medicine discovered how one specific autism-linked gene mutation actually works
And as the El Nino weather system has been storming across the Pacific this season, it has stirred up ocean waters enough to cool down the original Blob off of Alaska, but at the same time helped give birth to what has been nicknamed the "Son of Blob" off the coast of Southern California. The still-warmer Alaskan waters, and Son of Blob sector are expected to continue to magnify the El Nino effect for months to come, according to Weather Underground's "Blob Watch" blog.
