Allergies

Findings from a large, randomized trial suggest early exposure may decrease risk by as much as 86 percent

On a visit to China a few years back, I asked a local official about pollution controls after enjoying my first sour, gritty taste of the country’s air.

The FDA will continue to monitor safety from health records

The CDC is closely monitoring the outbreak of a rare respiratory infection afflicting people in Illinois and Missouri. Just how bad is it, and what can be done to stop the spread?

People who lack the gardening bug often regard flowers like fashion models: pretty but boring. Jens Petersen, the man who gave us the groundbreaking photographs of fungi in “The Kingdom of Fungi”, which I reviewed here in March, has a new book of photographs (still available only in Danish, unfortunately, and called Blomsterliv — “Flower [...]

A fungi expert helps Scientific American ID the mold in a reader-submitted photo

Growing up, I felt certain that grass and most trees did not have flowers. They just had leaves and seeds — that was all I could see, anyway.

In 2006, a man named Jasper Lawrence travelled to Africa to infect himself with hookworm by walking barefoot in a steaming mound of human excrement.

Misleading statements and conclusions regarding drug costs and prices are again being thrown around. It started with a post right here on Scientific American Blogs with the title “The Quest: $84,000 Miracle Cure Costs Less Than $150 to Make”.

Nearly four out of every 100 children in the U.S. have a food allergy, according to CDC data from 2007. Avoiding common food allergens, such as peanuts, eggs, tree nuts and fish, for the first few years of life was the prescription for prevention for many years, but in 2008 the American Academy of Pediatrics [...]

What the the nose knows might as well be limitless, researchers suggest.

I was on a bit of a hiatus on blogging last month, but a lot of good things happened. I had a manuscript accepted for publication at Cell, I got my box checked (which means I have permission to start writing my dissertation, which means I should be graduating this year), and my fiance and [...]