Disease and Illnesses
The Next West Nile Virus?
The chikungunya virus has escaped Africa and is traveling around the world via a widespread, invasive, voracious mosquito
June 29, 2011 |
By Carrie Arnold
A Triumph in the War Against Cancer
Oncologist Brian Druker developed a new treatment for a deadly cancer, leading to a breakthrough that has transformed medicine
May 2011 |
By Terence Monmaney
The Fatal Consequences of Counterfeit Drugs
In Southeast Asia, forensic investigators using cutting-edge tools are helping stanch the deadly trade in fake anti-malaria drugs
October 2009 |
By Andrew Marshall
The Culture of Being Rude
A new biological theory states that cultural behavior is not just a regional quirk, but a defense against the spread of disease
August 03, 2009 |
By Rob Dunn
High Hopes for a New Kind of Gene
Scientists believe that microRNA may lead to breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating cancer
July 2009 |
By Sylvia Pagán Westphal
Dreading the Worst When it Comes to Epidemics
A scientist by training, author Philip Alcabes studies the etymology of epidemiology and the cultural fears of worldwide disease
April 28, 2009 |
By Abigail Tucker
Gene Therapy in a New Light
A husband-and-wife team's experimental genetic treatment for blindness is renewing hopes for a controversial field of medicine
January 2009 |
By Jocelyn Kaiser
What's Killing the Aspen?
The signature tree of the Rockies is in trouble
December 2008 |
By Michelle Nijhuis
The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley
In Colorado, the gene linked to a virulent form of breast cancer found mainly in Jewish women is discovered in Hispanic Catholics
October 2008 |
By Jeff Wheelwright
How Breast Cancer Genes Work
Though we may talk of cancer as one disease, skin cancer has little in common with pancreatic cancer and breast cancer is something else entirely
October 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Point. Shoot. See
In Zambia, an NYC photographer teaches kids orphaned by AIDS how to take pictures. They teach him about living
November 2007 |
By Jess Blumberg
Show Stopper
The classically trained dance star Alicia Graf showed true grit overcoming a career-threatening ailment
October 2007 |
By Cathleen McGuigan
The Ethiopia Campaign
After fighting neglected diseases in Africa for a quarter century, former president Jimmy Carter takes on one of the continent's biggest killers malaria
June 2007 |
By Robert M. Poole
Medical Sleuth
To prosecutors, it was child abuse - an Amish baby covered in bruises, but Dr. D. Holmes Morton had other ideas
February 2006 |
By Tom Shachtman
The Flu Hunter
For years, Robert Webster has been warning of a global influenza outbreak. Now governments worldwide are finally listening to him
January 2006 |
By Michael Rosenwald
Tribal Fever
Twenty-five years ago this month, smallpox was officially eradicated. For the Indians of the high plains, it came a century and a half too late
May 2005 |
By Landon Y. Jones
Special Delivery
In the 1900s, health officials believed that puncturing supposedly disease-infested mail and then fumigating it slowed the spread of illness
February 2004 |
By Ed Leibowitz
Stopping a Scourge
No one knows if SARS will strike again. But researchers' speedy work halting the epidemic makes a compelling case study of how to combat a deadly virus
September 2003 |
By David Brown
On the Trail of the West Nile Virus
Some scientists race to develop vaccines against the scourge while others probe the possible lingering effects of the mosquito-borne infection.
July 2003 |
By Stephen S. Hall
