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Ever familiar with the puffing of peacock feathers having started my career in neurosurgery before switching fields, watching CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta question Trump's White House physician brought back memories.

Why would Canada spend $512 million on blood products from the United States when it has perfectly good sources of their own? The short answer is regulation of market forces, but there's more to it than that.

Some say that energy drinks are the worst thing that you can do to your body, and that they cause everything from nausea to seizures. But the fears are overdone. Way overdone. Here's why.

Why people respond differently to infections of the same bacterial species has been a long-standing question. Work has traditionally focused on the variations in those infected, but new research suggests that the important factors may lay in the bacteria themselves. 

This award needs to go to a media outlet that has credibility (in some people's eyes, anyway), yet consistently gets the science wrong, likely for ideological reasons. Using those criteria, the Times was the runaway winner. There isn't even a close second.

If the poor are really at risk because hospitals will be shut down due to lack of funding, the worst thing that the Empire State can do is add costs to health care. But that's exactly what Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently did with his budget proposal. 

Seeking to contain runaway costs with more than a quarter of Kentucky residents on Medicaid, Gov. Matt Bevin is proposing that able-bodied adults be required to work or volunteer in order to receive benefits. His plan, the first of its kind among the 50 states, has attracted considerable criticism. Yet while it has its flaws, there's also a case to be made that it's worth considering.

Government is transparent. That is, if you can cut your way through the jungle of bureaucracy. Competitive Enterprise Institute discovered that radical environmental groups are paying the salaries and expenses of staffers in the office of Washington State Governor, Jay Inslee.

Flavonoids: a group of phytonutrients mostly responsible for the vivid colors in fruits and veggies. But they're also touted as antioxidants that have some health benefits, most recently in the prevention of glaucoma. Let's take a look at the evidence.

President Donald Trump completed his first periodic medical examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. His White House physician, Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, released a statement of his findings and held a protracted press conference. His conclusions discussed here. 

Adulterated honey, meaning it has been diluted with other substances, has been an issue for as far back as honey has been sold.(1) One of the reasons we know so much about the composition of the sweetener is due to efforts from the 1960s on to fight fraud. Today, it is most likely to be mixed with high fructose corn syrup because, as you probably know, that is about the same in fructose.

A busy week for our health and science journalists, who were picked up by a range of media outlets across the political spectrum. Here's how some of our reporting was referenced.

The news website took issue with a predictive algorithm, which is used in sentencing criminal defendants, charging that it produced racially-biased results. A recent study suggests that particular narrative is wrong.

On average, across natural habitats all over the world, the western honey bee is the most common pollinator, responsible for 13 percent of flower visits. Researchers also found that 5 percent of the plant species they studied were exclusively visited by the western honey bee.

In Japan, there's a good example of natural not equaling safe. Right now officials are dealing with a butt-kicking marine neurotoxin that you want no part of. Although no one's been harmed, they are warning consumers about dangerous fugu – Japanese for blowfish – that did not have its livers removed before packaging.

If you think that your dishwasher is sterile, you're wrong. In fact, it's not even that clean. New research finds that both bacteria and fungi are growing in there. And even though it's very unlikely that they'll hurt you, it's still pretty gross. 

A 6-year-old boy tragically died this week after he contracted rabies after touching a bat. But dying from rabies is preventable ... if you know the correct steps to take. So here's what to do if you come into contact with a potentially rabid animal. 

A recent report on expanding the use of science in suspected homicides details the challenges of determining time of death after a long post-mortem interval. Estimating this interval is essential within forensic science dating back to 1894, when body decay stages and decomposition were first defined.

It's another vaccine success story, this time about rotavirus vaccines. Not only do the vaccines prevent the sometimes dangerous dehydration that accompanies this infection, they are also associated with a decreased occurrence of non-febrile seizures in infants and young children.

With Press Secretary Sarah Sanders' release of preliminary statements by the White House physician over President Trump's first routine medical exam in office, social media is going wild over word selection. But, are they using the right lens?

The New York Times recently surveyed readers to ask them about its coverage of the national opioid epidemic. Lots of boxes to check and pre-fab questions to sift through. Instead, we used one sentence from a Times article to point out what's wrong. And the answer is ... plenty. 

Atrial fibrillation affects many Americans and it can result in debilitating strokes. Risk calculators help physicians identify those patients at risk for stroke. However, the calculation can be improved by remembering that risk isn't static, but instead a fluid factor.

Eugenics has been science’s toxic brand since the end of World War II. The point was driven home yet again recently when Toby Young, appointee to the UK’s newly established Office of Students, was denounced in the House of Commons for having written favorably of “progressive eugenics”. Young resigned from the post the following day amid complaints about a series of other tweets and comments made in the past.

Some dopey teenagers are creating a social media firestorm by posting their adverse reactions to intentionally ingesting laundry detergent pods. Is this stupidity a new worry?

The flu reminds us that as social animals, pathogens can kill both individuals and large segments of our population. A study sheds some light on how ants, social insects, cope with infections that endanger their colony.