Health, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 31, 2019

Here's Why This Man Had a Giant White Mass on His Eyeball

It looks like a Hollywood special effect: An eye with a bulging white mass where the pupil and iris should be. But this odd eye problem is the result of a rare lesion on a man's eyeball, according to a new report of the case. The 74-year-old man arrived at...

Mar 31, 2019

Deadly Fungal 'Superbug' Spreads Worldwide, Alarming Scientists

A deadly fungal infection that is resistant to major antimicrobial medications is spreading globally, and scientists aren't sure where it came from. The fungus, called Candida auris, is a yeast that normally lives harmlessly on the skin and mucous membranes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)....

Mar 31, 2019

An Odd Eye Injury Caused a Man's Iris to 'Collapse'

The man's eye looks like a cloudy fishbowl, or perhaps a terrarium: A dark orb with a layer of a brown, sandy-looking substance at the bottom. But this isn't some kind of special contact lens. It's the result of a painful eye injury that caused the man's iris to tear...

Mar 31, 2019

The Source of That Mysterious E. Coli Outbreak Has Likely Been Found

The mystery behind what's causing the Escherichia coli outbreak that's sickened more than 100 Americans in the past month may finally be solved: Officials have linked the outbreak to ground beef. In a statement released today (April 12), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that, based on...

Mar 31, 2019

How Did Nearsighted People Manage Before Glasses Were Invented?

In 2017, the super-rich shared with The New Yorker their secrets for doomsday prep. Some were building luxury bunkers and stockpiling weapons. Others were buying property in New Zealand. Still others revealed that, in thinking about the possibility of civilization's collapse, they had been especially concerned with a problem right...

Mar 31, 2019

What Are Stem Cells?

The term stem cells has become part of the mainstream lexicon, likely to be overheard in conversations anywhere from a baseball game to cocktail get-togethers. But what exactly are these cells? Along with phrases such as that's just immoral or stem cells could be the end-all cure, one could easily...

Mar 31, 2019

Why Do Our Fingernails Keep Growing Until the Day We Die?

At 20 weeks in the womb, humans suddenly sprout tough little casings from the tips of our tiny digits. By the time we're born, our fingers and toes are crowned by fully-formed nails that will be with us for the rest of our lives. Over the ensuing decades, the average...

Mar 31, 2019

Smallpox: The World's First Eradicated Disease

Smallpox is a debilitating and occasionally fatal disease that's highly contagious. Prior to 1980, the disease killed 3 out of every 10 people who became infected, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Overall, smallpox caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of people before it was...

Feb 28, 2019

Why Does Time Fly When You're Having Fun?

The world's most precise clocks run at a steady pace, messing up by only about 1 second every 300 million years. But the brain takes those rhythmic seconds and makes its own sense of time — stretching the ticks and scrunching the tocks. But why can't the brain keep time...

Feb 28, 2019

Unvaccinated Oregon Boy Is Diagnosed with Tetanus, the State's 1st Child Case in 30 Years

While playing outside on a farm in Oregon, a 6-year-old boy fell down and cut his forehead. His parents cleaned and sutured his wound at home, and for a few days, everything seemed all right, according to a new report of his case. But six days after his fall, the...

Feb 28, 2019

Claire's Recalls 3 Makeup Products for Possible Asbestos Contamination

Shopping mall standby Claire's is voluntarily recalling three makeup products that may contain asbestos fibers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today (March. 12). The recalls were initiated after FDA tests indicated that asbestos fibers may be present in certain makeup products, according to a statement posted on...

Feb 28, 2019

Inactive Ingredients in Drugs May Be Less Inactive Than You Think

The medicines you take contain a soup of active and inactive ingredients. Active ingredients are the ones that provide a therapeutic benefit, while inactive ingredients are just that — inactive — meaning they don't react in the body and are instead there to enhance the properties of the medication itself,...

Feb 28, 2019

How Does the New Postpartum Depression Drug Work?

On Tuesday (March 19), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the first-ever approval of a drug specifically meant to treat postpartum depression. But how exactly does the drug work, and what makes it different from other medications for depression? The drug, called brexanolone (brand name Zulresso), needs to...

Feb 28, 2019

What Caused All These Spots on This Man's Brain?

When a young man in India started having seizures, doctors scanned his brain and found a grim image: His brain was dotted with parasitic cysts — the result of a severe and ultimately fatal tapeworm infection. The 18-year-old man was taken to the emergency room after having so-called tonic-clonic seizures,...

Feb 28, 2019

CDC Reports Unusual Spike in Rare Tick-Borne Disease in Oregon

Four people in Oregon were infected with a rare tick-borne virus, known as Colorado tick fever, in a single month, according to a new report. That's an unusually high number of cases for the state, which typically sees one or fewer cases of Colorado tick fever per year, according to...