Health, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2013

Ebola Treatment May Be On the Horizon (Op-Ed)

Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies. This article was adapted from one that first appeared in U.S. News & World Report. Nesbit contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. U.S. Army medical researchers may have found an emergency treatment...

Jul 31, 2013

4 Immune Boosting Tips for Back-to-School Season

Strep throat, double ear infections and yet another nasty stomach bug. Is it biological warfare, or just another back-to-school season? Parents of young children know this scenario all too well, but this is a problem that affects many others too. Teachers, parents of teenagers and anyone attending classes themselves have...

Jun 30, 2013

Is Your Olive Oil As Healthy As You Think? (Op-Ed)

Katherine Tallmadge, M.A., R.D., is a registered dietitian; author of Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits & Inspirations (LifeLine Press, 2011); and a frequent national commentator on nutrition topics. This article was adapted from one that first appeared in the Washington Post. Tallmadge contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert...

Jun 30, 2013

Why MERS is Not the New SARS

The new virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) has been compared to that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) — the viruses belong to the same family, and are particularly deadly to infected people — however, the two conditions have some important differences, a new study says. While...

May 31, 2013

As Cancer Deaths Fall, Malignant-Melanoma Rates Climb (Op-Ed)

Dr. Doris Day, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The American Cancer Society reports that death rates for many cancers in the United States have fallen — but that's not the case for melanoma. In fact, the...

May 31, 2013

Normal or Not? When Temper Tantrums Become a Disorder

Editor's Note: With the release of the latest edition of the mental health manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM), LiveScience takes a close look at some of the disorders it defines. This series asks the fundamental question: What is normal, and what is not? Angry...

May 31, 2013

Sexual Images Sway Conservative Guys Toward Risk

Sexually conservative men are more swayed by sexual images than more adventurous dudes, according to a new study that might help explain why the sexually conservative, paradoxically, tend to take sexual risks. The study suggests that men who have no intention of having casual sex nevertheless become more willing to...

May 31, 2013

Which Comes First -- Optimism Or Good Health?

(ISNS) -- Boosting optimism, defined as the general expectation that the future will be favorable, could provide new ways to improve health, some researchers believe. But scientists remain unsure if optimism precedes health improvements, or vice versa. Julia Boehm, a psychologist at Harvard University, and her colleagues performed what she...

May 31, 2013

Epigenetics: Definition & Examples

Epigenetics literally means above or on top of genetics. It refers to external modifications to DNA that turn genes on or off. These modifications do not change the DNA sequence, but instead, they affect how cells read genes. Examples of epigenetics Epigenetic changes alter the physical structure of DNA. One...

May 31, 2013

Go Gluten Free? Most People Shouldn't (Op-Ed)

Katherine Tallmadge, R.D.,is a registered dietitian, author of Diet Simple: 195 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits & Inspirations (Lifeline Press, 2011), and a frequent national commentator on nutrition topics. Tallmadge contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. It's all the rage right now; in fact, you may be...

Apr 30, 2013

Experts: Media May Be Second Prison for Cleveland Abductees

Three women kept captive in a boarded-up Cleveland house for between nine and 11 years will likely face a long road to recovery after their nightmarish ordeal. The women, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, all went missing between 2002 and 2004, when they were teens, or in Knight's...

Apr 30, 2013

'Junk' DNA Mystery Solved: It's Not Needed

One person's trash may be another person's treasure, but sometimes, trash is just trash. So-called junk DNA, the vast majority of the genome that doesn't code for proteins, really isn't needed for a healthy organism, according to new research. At least for a plant, junk DNA really is just junk...

Apr 30, 2013

Normal or Not? New Psychiatric Manual Stirs Controversy

With the release of the latest edition of the mental health manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), LiveScience takes a close look at some of the disorders it defines. This 10-part series asks the fundamental question: What is normal, and what is not? As of May...

Apr 30, 2013

Jedi Mind Trick? Brain Thinks It Inhabits Virtual Body

The brain's perception of the body may seem set in stone, but a new study shows the mind can be tricked into taking an entire virtual body for its own. In 1998, neuroscientists Matthew Botvinick and Jonathan Cohen performed an experiment where they showed people a rubber hand being stroked...

Apr 30, 2013

The Surprising Optimism of Tornado Victims (Op-Ed)

Jerry Suls is a social psychologist at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Previously, he was a psychology professor at the University of Iowa. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The people who survived the recent tornado disaster in Oklahoma...