Smoke from wildfires clogged the sky across the U.S. West, blotting out mountains and city skylines from Oregon to Colorado, delaying flights and forcing authorities to tell even healthy adults in the Seattle area to stay indoors. As large …
Scorching summer heat waves and downpours are set to become more extreme in the northern hemisphere as global warming makes weather patterns linger longer in the same place, scientists said Monday. They said there was a risk of “extreme extremes” …
The World Health Organization says the number of measles cases in Europe jumped sharply during the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 people have died. The U.N. agency’s European office said Monday more than 41,000 measles cases …
U.N. agencies and the Bangladesh government have begun distributing liquid petroleum gas stoves in Cox’s Bazar to help prevent further deforestation, which has been accelerating with the huge influx of Rohingya refugees during the past year. Cox’s Bazar is home …
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has abandoned plans to enshrine the nation’s targeted limits of greenhouse gas emissions into law in the face of an angry revolt by his party’s staunch conservatives. Australia set a target to cut carbon emissions …
A prosthetic hand might look like a hand and move like a hand. But can it ever feel like a hand? Johns Hopkins University graduate student Luke Osborn says yes. As Faith Lapidus reports, Osborn has developed an “electronic skin” …
The world’s oceans are filled with trace amounts of uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear power reactors. The trick is extracting it from the seawater. Now, scientists in the U.S. say they have done that using yarn, and extracted 5 …
With the Democratic Republic of Congo facing its second major Ebola outbreak this year, emergency responders have worked to contain the spread of the disease. Scientists, meanwhile, are testing the effectiveness of experimental vaccines in the field. Alongside these efforts, …
The World Health Organization says security issues could hamper efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak is in conflict-ridden North Kivu province, where some areas are too dangerous for health care workers …
U.S. health officials Thursday approved a new generic version of EpiPen, the emergency allergy medication that triggered a public backlash because of its rising price tag. The new version from Teva Pharmaceuticals is the first that will be interchangeable with …
In 1995, a patient sick with the Ebola virus, in what was then called Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, miraculously recovered from this deadly disease. At that time, when the virus first jumped from animals …
More than 100 cases of measles have been diagnosed this year in 21 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. As of July 14, 107 people had contracted the viral …
The scientific community has long acknowledged that vaccines work and have saved millions of lives. However, a vocal community, particularly in the U.S., believes that vaccines expose children to health risks and can cause harm. It can be easy to …
A mobile blood-testing lab. Hand-washing stations on street corners. Motorcycle taxi drivers forbidden from sharing spare helmets. If Ebola is coming, the city of Goma in eastern Congo wants to be ready. An outbreak suspected of killing 43 people is spreading across the lush …
Scientists in Florida are on the cusp of developing promising methods to control toxic algae blooms like the “red tide” that has been killing marine life along a 150 mile (240 km) stretch of the Gulf Coast, the head of …
The dismissal of a lawsuit filed by young people claiming government climate policy falls short will be appealed and marks a minor setback in pursuing legal action on behalf of youth and their rights, experts said. The legal complaint arguing that the state …
U.S. health officials are eliminating special regulations for gene therapy experiments, saying that what was once exotic science is quickly becoming an established form of medical care with no extraordinary risks. A special National Institutes of Health oversight panel will …
Britain’s hottest summer in decades has revealed cropmarks across the country showing the sites of Iron Age settlements, Roman farms and even Neolithic monuments dating back thousands of years, archaeologists said Wednesday. Cropmarks — patterns of shading in crops and …
If you quit smoking and gain weight, it may seem like you’re trading one set of health problems for another. But a new U.S. study finds you’re still better off in the long run. Compared with smokers, even the quitters …
Now that plastic straws may be headed for extinction, could Americans’ love of balloons be deflated? The joyous celebration of releasing balloons into the air has long bothered environmentalists, who say the pieces that fall back to earth can be …
Only four ingredients are needed to make one of the oldest staples of mankind. Mix water, hops, malt and yeast and you’re well on your way to making beer. But as Sadie Witkowski reports, it’s the smallest ingredient in beer …
Hailstorms inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage yearly in North America alone, and the cost will rise as the growing population builds more homes, offices and factories, climate and weather experts said Tuesday. The role of climate change in …
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has started using the experimental mAb114 Ebola treatment to counter the latest flare-up of the virus, health officials said Tuesday, the first time it has been deployed against an active outbreak. Forty-two people are believed to have …
World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the raging conflict in North Kivu makes the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo more dangerous than the historic 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa. More than 11,000 people died from the Ebola …