By the time the rain stops, Harvey will have dumped about 1 million gallons of water for every man, woman and child in southeastern Texas — a soggy, record-breaking glimpse of the wet and wild future that global warming could …
The muddy floodwaters now soaking through dry wall, carpeting, mattresses and furniture in Houston will pose a massive cleanup challenge with potential public health consequences. It’s not known yet what kinds or how much sewage, chemicals and waterborne germs are …
More than 1 in 4 cases of possible sexual and physical abuse against nursing home patients apparently went unreported to police, says a government audit that faults Medicare for failing to enforce a federal law requiring immediate notification. The Health …
Researchers in Moscow are testing a battery-powered driverless vehicle with a guidance system based on human eyesight. They say it will be cheap to produce and could soon be seen on closed roads, such as technology parks and college campuses. …
Bolivia is forging an approach to maternal care that combines traditional and Western medicine, in an effort to reduce the country’s high rate of new mother and newborn deaths. Faith Lapidus reports for VOA. …
Scientists have not been able to develop a vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, despite working toward one for more than 100 years. However, they may have stumbled onto something that could provide clues to advance the development of …
American workers are facing a paradox – many of them cannot find work while a lot of companies say they cannot find suitable candidates for job openings. Experts say the problem is in the so-called ‘skill gap,’ the incompatibility between …
Bonobos are primates that are very closely related to chimpanzees, and humans. They are found exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s not completely clear how many of them there are, but it is known that their numbers are …
A new device, developed by an Israeli start-up, could make routine visits to the doctor’s office a thing of the past. Faith Lapidus reports. …
In spite of many attempts to replace it with a more suitable material, asphalt concrete remains the best and cheapest material for paving roads. Vulnerable to heat, ice, ultraviolet light and mechanical stress, it has a relatively short lifespan and …
The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the IUCN. Threats come on land and sea. Thousands of turtles die every year in fishing nets, and their eggs are considered a …
Marine authorities in the U.S. and Canada said Friday they will marshal resources to try to find out what’s behind a string of deaths of endangered North Atlantic right whales. The animals are among the rarest marine mammals in the …
The Saffir-Simpson scale of a hurricane’s intensity is used to estimate potential property damage and coastal flooding caused by storm surge. The scale is determined by wind speed. Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water above the normal tide, …
After decades of a one-therapy-fits-all approach to fighting deadly diseases such as cancer or cystic fibrosis, physicians and researchers around the world are increasingly turning to a new tactic called personalized medicine. Practices are tailored to individual patients because different …
A group of Egyptian students have built a machine they say can produce fuel from worn-out vehicle tires. The device heats the tires until they reach evaporation point. The vapor then enters a condenser. The result is a product “very …
The oceans are rising faster and faster, threatening coastal cities around the world. The quickening pace is due, in part, to changes happening in the Arctic that scientists are just beginning to understand. From Greenland, VOA’s Steve Baragona reports on …
Patients who survive infection with the Ebola virus often continue to face numerous health problems. New research finds 80 percent of Ebola survivors suffer disabilities one year after being discharged from the hospital. Approximately 11,000 people died in the Ebola …
SpaceX has unveiled a sleek white spacesuit for astronauts on its crewed flights coming up next year. Chief executive Elon Musk made the big reveal via Instagram on Wednesday. He says it’s not him in the new suit, rather a …
Food alone cannot solve the world’s malnutrition crises but only three countries are looking beyond hunger to the other major driver, according to a global study released Thursday. Water, sanitation and hygiene, usually treated by governments and NGOs as a …
U.S. wildlife managers erred when they declined to list as endangered a small population of grizzly bears in the remote reaches of Idaho and northwest Montana, a federal judge has ruled in what conservationists on Wednesday hailed as a huge …
Engineers at a lab in Florida have been working quietly for 2½ years on building one of the most powerful magnets in the world. And on Monday, they succeeded. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory — whose main location is …
A federal research vessel will launch on a cruise this week to study how Beaufort Sea wind affects plant and animal life in a changing Arctic Ocean. The Sikuliaq, owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the University …
When diving in the Gulf of Maine a few years back, Jennifer Dijkstra expected to be swimming through a flowing kelp forest that had long served as a nursery and food for juvenile fish and lobster. But Dijkstra, a University …
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered a halt to research on the potential health hazards of people who live near mountaintop coal mining operations. The U.S. Interior Department ordered the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to end …