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Science / Mind & Body

At least 40 million died of the 1918-19 "Spanish flu," the most deadly disease episode in history. Influenza cases were treated at places including this army ward in Kansas in 1918.

The Flu Hunter

For years, Robert Webster has been warning of a global influenza outbreak. Now governments worldwide are finally listening to him

35 Who Made a Difference: Edward O. Wilson

Vindicated for his controversial sociobiology? Yes. Satisfied? Not yet

35 Who Made a Difference: Robert Langridge

His quest to peer into the essence of life no longer seems so strange

Dr. Henderson a week after he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush

35 Who Made a Difference: D. A. Henderson

Eradicating one of history’s deadliest diseases was just the beginning

35 Who Made a Difference: James Watson

After DNA, what could he possibly do for an encore?

Friendly to whites most of his life, Mandan Chief Four Bears (in an 1832 portrait by George Catlin) turned bitter as death approached, blaming them for the disease that would kill him.

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

Doses of oral polio vaccine are added to sugar cubes for use in a 1967 vaccination campaign

Conquering Polio

Fifty years ago, a scientific panel declared Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine a smashing success. A new book takes readers behind the headlines

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Our Adaptable Ancestors

Recent discoveries of skull fragments and tools testify to the resourcefulness of early humans

Researchers study identical twins—who develop from a single egg that splits after fertilization and therefore have the same genes—to learn how genes influence traits of predispose people to disease.

Twin Science

Researchers make an annual pilgrimage to Twinsburg, Ohio, to study inherited traits

A Matter of Taste

Are you a superstar? Just stick out your tongue and say “yuck”

Gimzewski uses an atomic force microscope (above, atop a bone cell) to "listen" to living cells.

Signal Discovery?

A Los Angeles scientist says living cells may make distinct sounds, which might someday help doctors “hear” diseases

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Kenyon’s Ageless Quest

A San Francisco scientist’s genetic research renews the ancient hope for a way to slow aging

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Prize Fight

Raymond Damadian refuses to take his failure to win a Nobel Prize, for a prototype MRI machine, lying down

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Hooked on Aging

Our writer tries to just say no to getting older

Neuroscientist Eugene Aserinsky attaches electrodes to his son, Armond, who was a frequent subject in his early sleep studies

The Stubborn Scientist Who Unraveled A Mystery of the Night

Fifty years ago, Eugene Aserinksy discovered rapid eye movement and changed the way we think about sleep and dreaming

Six weeks after authorities said SARS had broken out in Asia, CDC scientists in Atlanta identified a coronavirus as the culprit.

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

Shoe-fitting fluoroscope, National Museum of American History.

Here’s Looking at You, Kids

For three decades, the fluoroscope was a shoe salesman’s best friend

"I had a bunch of birds that had died of encephalitis at the same time people had encephalitis," says Tracey McNamara (in her Bronx apartment), a veterinary pathologist formerly at the Bronx Zoo. She helped link the virus to the 1999 epidemic.

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

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The Stuff of Genes

Fifty years after the discovery of DNA’s structure, the payoff hasn’t matched the hype. But really, we’ve only just begun

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Mission Impossible?

An international campaign to rid the world of polio has made dazzling progress. But some experts question whether the scourge can ever be eradicated

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