Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Health

Skunk is one of the smells this poor man thinks he’s smelling.

This Man’s Smell Hallucinations Can Predict the Weather

For one man Parkinson’s hallucinations were both horrible and predictive - he smelled an intense skunky oniony smell that got worse when a storm was coming

When You Don’t Have Enough Money, It’s Hard to Think About Anything Else

Subjects consumed with money, they found, dropped an average of 13 IQ points, or the equivalent of zapping our brain by pulling a mind-numbing all-nighter

There Might Soon Be a Cure for (Your Pet Mouse’s) Jetlag

Scientists have found the protein that prevents your (mouse’s) body from adjusting to changing time zones

Why Do We Cry When We’re Happy?

Your brain can’t handle the overflow of emotion

Drones Could Carry Defibrillators Straight to Heart Attack Victims

For heart attack victims, life expectancy decreases by about 10 percent for every minute that ticks by after an emergency

Boston Children’s Hospital Once Relied on the Opera to Power X-Rays

In the 1880’s the Children’s Hospital in Boston didn’t have electricity, so it couldn’t use X-rays. But the nearby Opera House did

Lyme disease can be carried by ticks, like this deer tick.

Lyme Disease Is Ten Times More Common Than We Thought

A recent CDC release says 300,000 Americans get Lyme disease each year

Atropine Is the Simplest Treatment for Nerve Gas Attacks, And Syria Is Running Low

For doctors on the ground, the question is less who used chemical weapons, and more how they are going to treat the victims

One Million Cockroaches Escaped from a Traditional Chinese Medicine Farm

The greenhouse where rochaes were being raised was destroyed by an unknown vandal - perhaps a neighbor not pleased about millions of cockroaches next door

Football Team Losses Make Fans Eat Their Feelings

A fan’s closeness to his team may be so tied up in his personal identity that his body interprets the loss as an effrontery to his own psyche

Most of China’s Infamous Black Carbon Smog Comes From Cars And Cook Fires

Surprisingly, until now authorities struggled to pinpoint the main pollution culprits behind the black carbon, or soot

Zombie Pigeons Are Invading Moscow

In humans, the offending disease produces mild sniffles and flu-like symptoms, not an undead stupor or craving for flesh

The Fukushima Nuclear Plant Is Leaking, Again

Despite efforts to contain the leak, around 80,000 gallons of water has managed to escape so far and the problem seems to be getting worse, not better

China Will Stop Harvesting Organs From Prisoners in November

China is the last to give up the practice, one that human rights organizations and the World Health Organization have been pushing against for years

Magic Mushrooms, LSD And Peyote Don’t Seem To Be Bad for Your Health

There may be some reasons for justifying making these products illegal, but detrimental impacts on health are likely not one of them

Chemicals in the Blood Could Warn of Suicidal Thoughts

Preliminary work has found chemical signs, hidden in the blood, of peoples’ internal struggles

To Exercise More, Sleep More First

Exercise is not a quick fix for sleeplessness, but rather a sleep aid that kicks in only with a long term investment of a regular schedule at the gym

Hide And Seek Might Be Good for Kids’ Brains

By switching perspectives from hider to seeker, kids get experience in putting themselves in someone else’s shoes

How Typhoid Mary Stayed Healthy

Researchers think a potential therapy could be developed that blocks the bacteria’s ability to divide and produce symptomatic typhoid

Too Much Facebook Time Will Get You Down

The more time study participants spent scrolling through Facebook, the less happy and satisfied with their lives they felt

Page 96 of 118