Health, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2012

Thanksgiving Tips: Keep Leftovers Safe

The turkey is picked-over, the cranberries are nearly gone, and everyone's leaning back from the table loosening their belts. But as Thanksgiving dinner ends, the cook has one more food-safety task to tend to. That would be storing the leftovers. Let's face it: We all cook more than we need...

Oct 31, 2012

How Does Cloning Work?

Cloning may invoke an image of an army of identical cows or sheep churned out factory-style, but in actuality, the process is much more laborious. The term cloning generally applies to a process more technically known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. What that means is that the DNA from the...

Sep 30, 2012

Why Women Don't Fall for Hairy Guys Remains a Scientific Mystery

Humans are not nearly as furry as our closest primate relatives, a fact that has puzzled evolutionary biologists for more than a century. One common theory for our relative hairlessness suggests that women long ago adopted a preference for less hairy guys as a way to avoid lice and other...

Sep 30, 2012

Resveratrol Supplements May Offer Little Benefit for Healthy People

Resveratrol — the red wine compound often touted for its possible healthful and anti-aging effects — may not bring the benefits to healthy people that preliminary research has suggested, a small new study finds. In the 12-week study, 29 healthy women, most of them in their late 50s, were given...

Aug 31, 2012

Cheers! 5 Intoxicating Facts About Beer

If America, and American workers, had an official alcoholic beverage, it would probably be beer. According to the Brewers Association, the overall U.S. beer market was worth $96 billion in 2011, when some 200 million barrels of beer were sold (1 barrel equals 31 gallons of beer). In the same...

Jul 31, 2012

Evolutionary Battle of the Sexes Drives Human Height

For women looking to pass on their genes, it pays to be short. For men, tall is the ideal. The result? An evolutionary tug-of-war in which neither gender reaches their perfect height. Those are the results of a new study published today (Aug. 7) in the journal Biology Letters. The...

Jul 31, 2012

How Depression Shrinks the Brain

Certain brain regions in people with major depression are smaller and less dense than those of their healthy counterparts. Now, researchers have traced the genetic reasons for this shrinkage. A series of genes linked to the function of synapses, or the gaps between brain cells crucial for cell-to-cell communication, can...

Jul 31, 2012

Marriage Drives Women to Drink, Study Suggests

Marriage may drive a woman to drink, not because she's unhappy but because she's influenced by her husband's alcohol consumption, new research suggests. And men, on average, drink more than women. Men, on the other hand, spend less time with their drinking buddies and more with their wives after tying...

Jul 31, 2012

Hantavirus Deaths in Yosemite: More Mice May Be to Blame

Two people have died from the rodent-borne disease called hantavirus after staying in Yosemite National Park, suggesting that the California park hosts many rodents, especially mice, infected with the virus. The virus kills 38 percent of infected people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, filling its victims'...

Jul 31, 2012

Spray-on Powder Uses Nitric Oxide to Fight Deadly Bacteria

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. A new compound that releases nitric oxide when exposed to light offers a treatment to help those infected by the potentially lethal bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. Resistant to most antibiotics, A. baumannii enters the body...

Jun 30, 2012

Batman on the Couch: Psychologist Analyzes Comic Book Character

He wears a caped bat costume in public and funds an alter ego out of his personal fortune. As a child he witnessed his parents' murders; as an adult, he puts his own life on the line, practicing a personal brand of vigilante justice. He may be a comic book...

Jun 30, 2012

You Gave Me What? 5 Crummy Conditions We Inherit

We can't blame all of life's misfortune on our parents, but the range of less-than-ideal physical issues we can pin on them run from the unfortunate to the downright deadly. Many diseases and conditions result from various factors, often including both the genes we inherit to the food we eat...

Jun 30, 2012

Chemicals in Nail Polish, Hair Spray May Increase Diabetes Risk

A group of chemicals found in personal care products may raise the risk of diabetes, a new study suggests. Women in the study with highest concentrations of these chemicals, called phthalates, in their bodies were more likely to have diabetes than women with lowest concentrations, the researchers said. Phthalates are...

Jun 30, 2012

Bath Salts May Be as Addictive as Cocaine, Study Suggests

Recreational drugs called bath salts, which have gained popularity recently and have been in the news for their bizarre effects on users, have the potential for abuse and addiction, similar to that of cocaine. Bath salts, which, despite their name, have no use in the tub, are different variations of...

Jun 30, 2012

Club Drug Ecstasy Harms Memory, Study Reveals

Recreational use of the club drug Ecstasy could cause memory problems, new research finds. The research is the first study of Ecstasy users before they begin to use the drug regularly, which helps rule out alternative causes for the memory loss, said study leader Daniel Wagner, a psychologist at the...