Articles tagged as Medicine | Smithsonian Magazine

Gold Nanoparticles Can Remote Control the Brain

It’s just the latest twist in nanotech that is using gold as medicine

March 27, 2015

A digital scan of a human kidney and pelvis.

Medical Holograms Are Now Part of the Surgeon’s Toolkit

Technology hitting the market will help doctors examine heart conditions or check for colon cancer without breaking the skin

March 27, 2015

Cool Finds

How a Stinging Swarm of Bees Can Save a Life

Bee venom might be a potent medicine

March 27, 2015

In Mozambique, rats, like this one shown, have been used to detect land mines. Now they're being put to work to aid the fight against tuberculosis.

Highly trained rodents are helping doctors better diagnose TB in a region hard hit by the deadly disease

March 25, 2015

Cats Get Breast Cancer Too, and There’s a Lot We Can Learn From It

Understanding aggressive tumors in pets may lead to better treatments for the nastiest forms of the disease in people

March 25, 2015

About a quarter of residents in a small town in Kazakhstan have fallen into a deep sleep for days at a time—and no one knows why

March 23, 2015

Marijuana buds are often two to three times as potent as they were 30 years ago.

New Research

Modern Marijuana Is Often Laced With Heavy Metals and Fungus

Medical and recreational marijuana use is increasingly legal—but do consumers know what they’re smoking?

March 23, 2015

Members of the Xhosa tribe, like the young initiates seen here in Khayelitsha, are among the South African groups that practice ritual circumcision. The affiliation of the young man who received a transplant is not known.

The doctors who announced the first successful procedure last week had a particularly difficult time finding willing organ donors

March 19, 2015

The iTBra by Cyrcadia Health aims to screen for breast cancer in a new way, but still requires much testing.

Could a Bra Actually Detect Breast Cancer?

Using thermodynamic sensors, the iTBra could one day screen for breast cancer, but experts are wary

March 19, 2015

New Research

1,800 Studies Later, Scientists Conclude Homeopathy Doesn’t Work

A major Australian study debunks homeopathy—again

March 11, 2015

New Drawings Show the Strange Beauty of Phages, the Bacteria Slayers

Phage viruses rearrange genes, prey on bacteria and maintain microbial diversity. Can we harness them to do our bidding?

March 9, 2015

A lithograph depicting an ancient Egyptian physician treating a patient for lockjaw. In the village of Deir el-Medina, this man may have still been paid while missing work.

Cool Finds

Some Ancient Egyptians Had State-Sponsored Healthcare

Craftsmen who built royal tombs enjoyed sick days, designated physicians and rationed medicine—all paid by the state

February 20, 2015

New York saw 4,500 annual cases by 1907. Mallon was linked to 47, and 3 deaths.

The Frightening Legacy of Typhoid Mary

With concerns about infectious disease in the news, a look back at history’s most famous carrier

March 2015

New Research

Is That Pill a Placebo? This Program Can Tell, Even If You Can’t

A new algorithm could make it faster and less expensive to develop new painkillers

February 19, 2015

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

February 12, 2015

The World of Chocolate

Healers Once Prescribed Chocolate Like Aspirin

From ancient Mesoamerica to Renaissance Europe, the modern confectionary treat has medical roots

February 12, 2015

Ducks Help Explain How We Feel All the Feels

Highly sensitive nerves in duck bills are offering clues to the way we experience the sense of touch

February 11, 2015

Trained in CPR? This Life-Saving App Could Make You a Superhero

When someone is experiencing cardiac arrest, PulsePoint sends alerts to CPR-certified invidividuals nearby

February 9, 2015

One of the HIV-prevention medications, a pill called Truvada

New Research

A Setback for HIV Prevention Trial: Getting People To Take the Medicine

Women didn’t take their preventative medications, even those proven to work, for fear of side effects

February 6, 2015

Cool Finds

Thomas Jefferson Conducted Early Smallpox Vaccine Trials

When an English doctor discovered a safer kind of immunity, someone had to spread the word to America

February 4, 2015