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October 15, 2014Health
How Did a Dallas Nurse Catch Ebola?: Health authorities scramble to figure out what went wrong with containment; Katherine Harmon Courage

December 7, 2010The Sciences
Pending U.S. Food Safety Bill Promises More Accountability--Backed by Science: If the current food safety bill is signed into law, the origins of contaminants in mystery meats and other comestibles consumed in U.S. food should be faster and easier to uncover and trace...; Katherine Harmon

March 23, 2012Health
Health Care Reform on Trial: What's at Stake in the Supreme Court Arguments: Hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act begin on March 26. The law has yet to take full force, and key aspects, health experts argue, remain fundamentally misunderstood by the public...; Katherine Harmon

October 18, 2014Health
How Did Nigeria Quash Its Ebola Outbreak So Quickly?: What we can learn from the boot leather, organization and quick response times that stopped Ebola from spreading in this African nation; Katherine Harmon Courage

October 1, 2009Evolution
Long-Awaited Research on a 4.4-Million-Year-Old Hominid Sheds New Light on Last Common Ancestor: Fifteen years in the making, a dossier of papers on "Ardi" published in Science suggest that like humans, chimpanzees have undergone substantial evolutionary change; Katherine Harmon

August 11, 2011Biotech
Skinlike Electronic Patch Takes Pulse, Promises New Human-Machine Integration: A web of minuscule wires woven into an adhesiveless silicon patch could provide a future where heart monitors are nearly invisible, prosthetics can feel pressure and video games can take verbal commands...; Katherine Harmon

January 27, 2021Public Health
COVID-Overwhelmed Hospitals Strain Staff and Hope to Avoid Rationing Care: There are times when critically ill patients must wait for beds, and some facilities have contingency plans to limit scarce supplies to certain patients; Katherine Harmon Courage

July 26, 2013
Will the Robot Uprising Be Squishy?: Octopuses offer an extreme engineering challenge: They are almost infinitely flexible, entirely soft-bodied and incredibly intelligent. Are we vertebrate humans ever going to be able to build anything as deformable and complex as a real octopus?...; Katherine Harmon

June 26, 2013
Unusual Offshore Octopods: Deep-Sea Octopus Hatches Fully Formed, Walks Away [Video]: Most octopuses take the million-to-one-odds strategy when it comes to reproduction. They lay thousands—if not tens or hundreds of thousands—of tiny eggs.; Katherine Harmon

June 6, 2013
Unusual Offshore Octopods: Great Glowing Octopus! [Video]: What has eight arms, no bones and hundreds of bright, twinkly lights? The glowing sucker octopus ( Stauroteuthis syrtensis ), of course.This flashy octopod is one of the few of its kind to have true bioluminescence, a trait much more common in two other cephalopod relatives, squid and cuttlefish...; Katherine Harmon

April 5, 2013
Unusual Offshore Octopods: The Weapon-Wielding Blanket Octopus [Video]: We continue our exploration of the many mysterious octopuses that live far from shore—and the eyes of humans. Today we meet the blanket octopus ( Tremoctopus ), a genus with four species that, until recently, had only been described based on female specimens...; Katherine Harmon

January 16, 2013Health
Coughs Fool Patients into Unnecessary Requests for Antibiotics: No one wants a hacking cough for days or weeks on end. But research shows that it generally takes about 18 days to get over a standard cough-based illness.; Katherine Harmon

April 27, 2012
Shift Workers in Dangerous Industries Most Likely to Be Short on Sleep: It's always nice to get the full recommended seven or nine hours of sleep every day. But life—and work—often gets in the way. And getting too little sleep can decrease attention and short-term memory and can also alter rational judgment—in addition to increasing the risk for some diseases and making it harder to lose weight.Thus, for those who work in an industry where a simple error can lead to injury or death, missing out on sleep can be seriously dangerous...; Katherine Harmon

June 20, 2012
Hotel Rooms' Most Bacteria-Laden Surfaces? Don't Touch That Dial: Whenever I stay in a hotel room, I'm a little wary of the throw pillows, a bit skittish about the television remote and would never even consider taking a bath.; Katherine Harmon

June 1, 2012
How Octopuses Make Themselves Invisible [Video]: The octopus is an amazing master of disguise. It can essentially vanish, right before your eyes, into a complex scene of colorful coral or a clump of kelp waving in the currents.For a view of this phenomenon in reverse, check out this now-viral video shot by Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory senior scientist Roger Hanlon...; Katherine Harmon

July 12, 2012
For Unendowed Fish, A Fake Dinner Leads to Sex: The promise of a nice dinner might not always win over a woman, but for some male fish, a tasty-looking lure seems to get the girl pretty reliably. The trick is to make sure the offering resembles the local cuisine and then they can reel in the ladies hook, line and sinker.Swordtail charachin ( Corynopoma riisei ) that live in the rivers of Trinidad feast mostly on hapless bugs that plop into the water from surrounding vegetation...; Katherine Harmon

August 8, 2012Evolution
Early Meat-Eating Human Ancestors Thrived While Vegetarian Hominin Died Out: There has been fierce debate recently over whether the original "caveman" diet was one of heaps of bloody meat or fields of greens. New findings suggest that some of our early ancestors were actually quite omnivorous...; Katherine Harmon

August 15, 2012
Ebola-Like Disease Has Snakes Tied Up in Knots: In 2009, some of the snakes at the California Academy of Sciences' Steinhart Aquarium were acting sort of s-s-s-s-strange. Scientists suspected a sickness whose cause was mysterious.; Katherine Harmon

August 16, 2012
Is Your Slimmer Self Waiting Online?: Losing weight and keeping it off is a common goal—and constant challenge—for millions of Americans. And people spend loads of cash on specialized diet and weight loss programs, meetings, even personal coaches...; Katherine Harmon

August 22, 2012
1 in 5 Rx's for Seniors Is Inappropriate: Take two of these—or should that be three? Or one?Congress recently took steps to improve the safety of children’s drugs. Now, a new study finds that those on the other end of the age spectrum also frequently receive medication that may put their health at risk.Approximately 20 percent of prescriptions that primary care providers give to patients over the age of 65 are inappropriate, according to the study, published online August 22 in PLoS ONE ...; Katherine Harmon

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Publication Date

How Did a Dallas Nurse Catch Ebola?

Pending U.S. Food Safety Bill Promises More Accountability--Backed by Science

Health Care Reform on Trial: What's at Stake in the Supreme Court Arguments

How Did Nigeria Quash Its Ebola Outbreak So Quickly?

Long-Awaited Research on a 4.4-Million-Year-Old Hominid Sheds New Light on Last Common Ancestor

Skinlike Electronic Patch Takes Pulse, Promises New Human-Machine Integration

COVID-Overwhelmed Hospitals Strain Staff and Hope to Avoid Rationing Care

Will the Robot Uprising Be Squishy?

Unusual Offshore Octopods: Deep-Sea Octopus Hatches Fully Formed, Walks Away [Video]

Unusual Offshore Octopods: Great Glowing Octopus! [Video]

Unusual Offshore Octopods: The Weapon-Wielding Blanket Octopus [Video]

Coughs Fool Patients into Unnecessary Requests for Antibiotics

Shift Workers in Dangerous Industries Most Likely to Be Short on Sleep

Hotel Rooms' Most Bacteria-Laden Surfaces? Don't Touch That Dial

How Octopuses Make Themselves Invisible [Video]

For Unendowed Fish, A Fake Dinner Leads to Sex

Early Meat-Eating Human Ancestors Thrived While Vegetarian Hominin Died Out

Ebola-Like Disease Has Snakes Tied Up in Knots

Is Your Slimmer Self Waiting Online?

1 in 5 Rx's for Seniors Is Inappropriate