Medical Technology

When a species experiences catastrophic population declines as high as 99.9 percent, any bit of good news is cause for celebration—even if the news isn’t exactly great.

The coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa by U.S. media has often seemed unremittingly grim. So it was with some trepidation that I boarded a plane for Sierra Leone.

Just as the CDC’s and other experts’ thoughts on Ebola and infection control have evolved with experience, mine have taken a slight twist as well.

Scientists try to untangle the relationship between a temporary effect and a permanent condition

This blog is the fourth in a series of guest posts on technology and the brain to celebrate Scientific American Mind’s 10-year anniversary.

I try to find humor in some unfunny places, but I was never sure how to approach cancer. I first did a comic about cancer genes for my book What’s in Your Genes?, which seems to find the happy place between facts and silliness.

This blog is the first in a series of guest posts on technology and the brain to celebrate Scientific American Mind’s 10-year anniversary.

Two of the nation’s largest nursing unions blast the CDC’s handling of U.S. Ebola cases and ask for more resources and hands-on training

As the first ice-bucket challenge funds are disbursed, researchers also hope to solve the puzzle of why certain muscles escape the ravages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a detail that might lead to new treatments

By copying aspects of the slick surfaces of insect-catching pitcher plants, researchers created tubes that can carry blood without promoting the formation of blood clots or bacterial attachment. Cynthia Graber reports

 

In the two days since the second U.S. Ebola patient was diagnosed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has assembled a new team to battle the threat of Ebola.

A Spanish nurse who contracted the virus is just one of hundreds infected while battling the deadly disease, often with substandard equipment and safety protocols