Medicine

New Research

Why Ancestral Puebloans Honored People With Extra Digits

New research shows having extra toes or fingers was a revered trait among people living in the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

July 27, 2016

Instead of Painkillers, Some Doctors Are Prescribing Virtual Reality

Virtual reality therapy may be medicine’s newest frontier, as VR devices become better and cheaper

July 21, 2016

New Research

How Fetus Dissections in the Victorian Era Helped Shape Today’s Abortion Wars

Besides teaching us about disease and human development, they molded modern attitudes of the fetus as distinct entity from the mother

July 12, 2016

New Research

New Study Calls the Reliability of Brain Scan Research Into Question

Three million analyses point to a problem with fMRI brain activity studies

July 7, 2016

Why People Abandon High-Tech Prosthetics

That Luke Skywalker prosthetic arm may strike the average user as less than sensational

June 29, 2016

Childhood Leukemia Was Practically Untreatable Until Dr. Don Pinkel and St. Jude Hospital Found a Cure

A half century ago, a young doctor took on a deadly form of cancer—and the scientific establishment

July 2016

Trending Today

Editing of Human Genes May Begin by Year’s End in the U.S.

The first-ever trial of CRISPR in the U.S. will test if it’s safe to edit T cells in cancer patients

June 23, 2016

Why We’re Giving People 20 Percent Doses of the Yellow Fever Vaccine

Vaccine stores in Africa have repeatedly been depleted. The WHO’s decision to allow mini-doses reflects a precarious—and cyclical—shortage

June 22, 2016

Scientists May Be Able To Pack All Your Medications Into One “Personalized” Pill

And nine other things you never thought could be made on a 3D printer

June 7, 2016

See Over 2,000 Wax Models of Skin Diseases at This Swiss Medical Moulage Museum

It’s hard to look, and hard to look away, at this unique, and medically valuable, collection of wax blisters, hives and sores

June 3, 2016

How Drunk Are You? Ask Your Bracelet

The BACtrack Skyn, a wearable similar in style to a Fitbit, tracks your blood alcohol level in real time

May 27, 2016

This Edible Supercapacitor Could Transform Ingestible Electronics

The materials for a new electronic component that could power a tiny camera sound more like breakfast than science

May 27, 2016

New Research

Doctors Diagnose Diseases of Subjects in Two Famous Paintings

The doctor will frame you now

May 26, 2016

Old Cosmetics Made New Again Through the Art of Digitization

Arsenic Complexion Wafers? A whole new world of yesteryear cosmetics just got a refresh

May 20, 2016

Future Is Here Festival

How to Make Science Fiction Become Fact, in Three Steps

Speakers at Smithsonian magazine’s “Future is Here” festival said be patient, persistent, but never, ever pessimistic

April 25, 2016

Trending Today

Marijuana Advocates Want to Establish a Standard Unit of Highness

What’s the weed equivalent to an alcoholic drink?

April 22, 2016

Trending Today

Vaccine Switch Marks a New (and Hopefully Last) Stage in the Battle With Polio

Over the weekend, health officials began replacing the current polio vaccination in an effort to wipe out one of three strains of the virus

April 18, 2016

Future Is Here Festival

Anthony Fauci Is Waging War Against Zika, and Preparing for Other Epidemics to Come

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases talks about developing a Zika vaccine

April 18, 2016

Taking a Cue from Textile-Making to Engineer Human Tissue

Researchers in search of a faster, cheaper way to engineer human tissue found success in traditional textile production methods.

April 14, 2016

New Research

Pig Heart Beat for Over Two Years in Baboon’s Belly

Researchers take big step forward in the quest to develop cross-species organ transplants

April 7, 2016