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A novel (and sorely needed) asthma drug is making some noise during Phase II clinical trials in Great Britain. Inflammation and constriction of the airways was shown in a small number of subjects. Should this hold up in larger trials, it could be a game changer for all asthmatics.

A new nanostructured material selectively destroys bacteria, while leaving eukaryotic cells alone. Antibacterial surfaces such as this are needed for medical devices.

Here'e to appreciating how, through precisely-calibrated nutrition, these extraordinary Olympic athletes become powerhouses of performance. Aside from their sport-specific training, it can be argued that Team USA is only Team USA because of the U.S.O.C's Sport Nutrition Team, which puts the right food on the training table and guides each athlete through their individualized schedule of consumption.

With rising costs, an inundated healthcare system, and limited resources, physicians have been known to ration medical services. According to a recent study, over half of the physicians surveyed reported withholding beneficial clinical services to patients over the past six months, with prescription drugs and MRIs at the top of the restricted list.

Seeking entry into the annals of Perceived Threats That Makes Parenting Needlessly More Frightening, we now have a new "study" claiming that kids playing within enclosed, inflatable, trampoline-like enclosures in warmer climates are potentially at risk of dying from heat stroke. "Researchers" please stop scaring parents.

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If you are educated by Google, you see Deniers for Hire have called us a "pro-industry front group" - Greenpeace, Mother Jones, NRDC, U.S. Right to Know, and SourceWatch, the whole cabal. The problem with their argument (other than the fact it is ad hominem) is that, if it really was true that ACSH is a corporate shill, we would have to be really, really bad at it, given our content.

Instead of making more sense as time goes by, Zika seems to make less sense. Odd, and conflicting findings are coming out regularly. It keeps throwing surprises at us, and they just don't add up. Here is some up-to-date confusion.

Hugh Hefner's wife Crystal is all over the news because she decided to have her breast implants removed because she believed that they “were slowly poisoning her.” Ms. Hefner is free to do whatever she chooses, but she is spreading false information. Dr. Jack Fisher, who is an expert in this subject tells us why.
Science is not on her side. Not even close.

There was a time when the International Agency for Research on Cancer did fine work. It knew how to separate health threats from health scares and if its officials tackled something, it was important. Yet today IARC claims hot water and bacon causes cancer. What went wrong? Frankly, officials ran out of cancer-causing agents so they started inventing them. And now we have this glyphosate fiasco.

Organic farming produces 20% fewer crops. An inefficient food production system is, by definition, not sustainable. The authors also underscore this point by noting that “if all US wheat production were grown organically, an additional 12.4 million hectares (30.6 million acres) would be needed to match 2014 production levels.” Extrapolate that out to the rest of the globe, and one can easily see how organic farming cannot feed the world.

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When is comes to drug discovery and development, the clock is always ticking. This clock affects both drug companies and patients. Pfizer's Dr. Robert Popovian explains.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio winning his first-ever Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday was every bit as satisfying as it should have been. But It was during DiCaprio's acceptance speech that left me, and a few others, a bit confused.

Mosquito season is around the corner, and there may be an extra surprise this year, depending on how Zika behaves. So, do you slop DEET all over your kids? Spray to kill the mosquitoes? Some are calling for the use of DDT. But if you're scared of chemicals, you might actually prefer DDT to DEET. Here's how they compare.

If you have a hidden agenda, it’s best to try and hide it. That's what we’d recommend after reading a misleading, unbalanced report on the website Quartz. The reporter's unsupported piece isn’t really about meat consumption and how it’s making men sick — it's about meat and how it’s making her sick.

Competitive eater Molly Schuyler stands 5-foot-7 and weighs just 125 pounds. Her petite frame appears to be at odds with her staggering prowess to gorge herself, which left us scratching our heads in incredulity. How does someone manage to eat so much, yet maintain such a seemingly healthy physique?

An analysis of 87 studies squashed the notion that moderate consumption of alcohol (including wine) has any benefit to longevity. This comes after earlier research seemed to indicate the opposite. We wish science would make up its mind.

Black and white Americans, especially men, differ with respect to their risk of lung cancer from smoking exposure. But depending on the metric used, the reasons for this difference is not clear. A new study uses a more detailed computation of exposure to help clarify the different exposure levels.

Thanks to a really idiotic Vermont law, food companies all over the U.S. are scrambling to make thoroughly useless changes to their labels, specifying whether any GM ingredients are in their products. Providing no scientific merit, the law seems to be designed simply to benefit Vermont. Guess who will pay the higher prices for this nonsense?

A vaccine for herpes? Is it possible? Maybe.

Over the course of the past few weeks Mylan has replaced Turing and Valeant as the most scrutinized and critiqued pharmaceutical companies in the United States. Though politicians and pundits have claimed the problem is Big Pharma, the issue of price-gouging is far more pervasive among generic drugs.

WebMD earned its recently-bestowed moniker, WebBM, by spewing out one poop-related story after another. But they have really stepped in it now. The site, which we will now also refer to as WebD-U-M-B, published an article on fast-food scares that was really, really stupid. 

By now, anyone who has perused the grocery aisles has seen the plethora of products that proudly proclaim they're "gluten-free." But the number of people that need gluten-free foods — those with celiac disease — hasn't increased. Are people being seduced by ads, or is there some other rationale for making gluten-free choices?

The news about Zika keeps coming, and it's not good. A new Lancet study estimates that the fetuses of 1 in 100 women who become infected with the virus during their first trimester will be microcephalic, meaning that they'll be born with undersized heads. Given the number of infections in Brazil alone, this is a disturbingly high number.