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Heart Disease

Cyanobacteria, sometimes known as blue-green algae, are single-celled organisms that use photosynthesis to produce food just like plants do.

New Research

Need to Fix a Heart Attack? Try Photosynthesis

Injecting plant-like creatures into a rat’s heart can jumpstart the recovery process, study finds

Drinking fountain on the Halifax County Courthouse (North Carolina) in April 1938.

New Research

Racism Harms Children’s Health, Survey Finds

Racism may not be a disease, exactly. But a growing body of research finds that it has lasting physical and mental effects on its victims

New Research

Researchers Turn Spinach Leaves Into Beating Heart Tissues

These living leaves could eventually become patches for the human heart

A bonfire of elephant ivory burns in Kenya's Nairobi National Park in July 1989.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Wondering What a Bonfire Does to Your Lungs? We Answer Your Burning Questions

Setting large piles of stuff aflame can have significant environmental and human health impacts

An early cotton-candy machine.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

People at the 1904 World’s Fair Paid Half the Price of Admission for a Box of Cotton Candy

Celebrating cotton candy’s sugary, innovative goodness

A Jarvik-7 artificial heart in the Smithsonian's collection.

Remembering Barney Clark, Whose Ethically Questionable Heart Transplant Advanced Science

Three decades ago, a dentist agreed to receive the first artificial heart. And then things went downhill

Take heart: researchers are probing how the hard-hearted get that way, and whether they can be turned back.

New Research

How the Heart Hardens, Biologically

With age and injury, the soft tissues of the heart can turn to bone. Can this deadly process be reversed?

Flatline on a heart monitor

The Lazarus Phenomenon, Explained: Why Sometimes, the Deceased Are Not Dead, Yet

What does CPR have to do with the curious case of clinically dead patients coming “back to life”?

Heart Valves at the National Museum of American History

Innovative Spirit Health Care

A Man With a Lot of Heart Valves Donates His Unusual Collection

Minneapolis entrepreneur Manny Villafana says his collection at the American History Museum is filled with stories of both failure and success

Imagining the future of artificial hearts.

Help for the Brokenhearted: Wearable, Biosynthetic and ‘Beatless’ Artificial Hearts

Cow-machine hybrids and continuous-flow technologies are helping people survive devastating heart failure

Nurses who work rotating shifts are at greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and lung cancer than workers who stick with a nine-to-five schedule.

New Research

Five Years of Night Shift Work Elevate a Person’s Risk of Death

Working inconsistent hours is bad for your health, according to researchers who studied 75,000 U.S. nurses

(Clockwise from top left) Katrin Macmillan, Ashutosh Saxena, Richard Lunt and Horace Luke are hard at work on exciting new projects.

Eight Innovators to Watch in 2015

From food science and robotics to solar tech and sustainable architecture, these folks are poised to do big things

A light therapy session in a German clinic.

The Dangers of Winter Darkness: Weak Bones, Depression and Heart Trouble

Long periods without sunshine can play a role in a surprising variety of physical and mental disorders

New Research

Losing Weight Makes People Healthy—But Not Necessarily Happy

The relationship between losing weight and being happy is not at all straightforward

New Research

One Aspirin a Day Helps Keep Cancer Away

According to the largest analysis conducted to date, daily doses of aspirin significantly reduces the risk of getting some common cancers

Cool Finds

Fish Oil Could Be a Modern-Day Snake Oil

The premise that fish oil is good for your heart is based on questionable data

Elizabeth Holmes holds a vial of one drop of blood—all that's needed for a new method of simultaneously testing for a gamut of health threats, such as STDs, heart disease and diabetes.

Tech Watch

How To Run 30 Health Tests On a Single Drop of Blood

Say goodbye to lengthy blood work. A new lab called Theranos says its method is faster, more accurate and much less painful

Five Vitamins and Supplements That Might Actually be Worth Taking

Science tells us that taking most vitamins is worthless—but a few buck the trend

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