Medicines

The ability of one microbe to adapt is giving it a whole new career as a sexually transmitted disease. Usually content with the back of the throat and nose of those who carry it, the dangerous pathogen Neisseria meningitidis has adapted to cause an illness that looks a lot lik ...more

Other than salt, there's no ingredient that's as big a kitchen staple as olive oil. And just like salt, there are a million little known uses for it. Don't Miss: 20 Non-Cooking Uses for Olive Oil None of these uses will quite compare with searing a delicious ribeye or constr ...more

Staphylococcus aureus is a widespread bacteria — about a third of us have it on our body right now — usually in our nose or on our skin. And it probably isn't causing an infection. But, about 1% of people who have Staphylococcus aureus present have a type that is resistant to ...more

Ayurvedic medicine is a 5,000-year-old system of Hindu traditional medicine of Vedic tradition and is now a widespread form of alternative medicine and natural holistic healing. Ayurveda helps identify a person's ideal state of balance and suggests remedies for out-of-balance ...more

There are all kinds of theories—many supported by science—about what causes Alzheimer's disease. Tangles of protein called ß-amyloid (pronounced beta amyloid) plaques are prominently on the list of possible causes or, at least, contributors. An emerging theory of the disease s ...more

No one ever wants to experience pain, whether it's as small as a stubbed toe or as great as recovering from surgery. Yet so much of our lives causes pain, lasting or brief in its form. With a few mental tricks and unusual home remedies, you can relieve some of the most common ...more

Most of us have already had an encounter with the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, for short. As part of the herpes family, it's one of the most common disease-causing viruses in humans. We get the disease with (or without) some nasty symptoms, then we recover. However, EBV stays i ...more

It's currently 2011, but when you fire up your game console, put your hands on the controller and play the new Dead Space 2 video game, you're warped into the future— into the year 2511— just 3 years after the events that took place in the first Dead Space. And it's sure to be ...more

Mobile phones are not only essential for work and communication, they're quickly becoming an integral asset to our health. Your iPhone can store valuable data about fitness, nutrition, heart health, and so much more. And since iOS 11.3, your iPhone can even import a list of al ...more

It's remarkable that a gaming device (from Microsoft, no less) designed for geeky gamers has incited broad innovation in medicine and robotics. But that Kinect has captured the imagination of hackers-with-MBAs-in-mind is downright amazing. Below, six videos demonstrating a va ...more

Move over whole wheat — white bread may be back in style after a new study shows that it may be your gut microbes that decide what kind of bread is best for you. As a health food, whole wheat bread undeniably rules, right? With its whole grain goodness, whole wheat has long b ...more

If you're like me, you have a secret dream of living in a house completely covered wall-to-wall and carpet-to-carpet in bubble wrap. Until you have enough of that pliable transparent plastic with air-filled bubbles, there are some truly practical things you can do with the lit ...more

My morning just doesn't start without a cup of coffee and an incredibly hot shower. There's nothing better than sloughing off sleep with a dose of warm, cleansing water. Except, as scientists are pointing out, our habit of showering daily isn't exactly the healthiest choice. T ...more

Natural remedies used through the ages abound, especially in Asian medicine. The willow-leaved justicia plant, found throughout Southeast Asia, has traditionally been used to treat arthritis, but scientists have just discovered it contains an anti-HIVcompound more potent than ...more

Marijuana is legal to use for medical purposes in 28 states and the District of Columbia, but the quick development of this new industry could have left some regulation issues in the lurch. Recently, a California man died of a fungal infection after using marijuana to help al ...more

In case you missed it, we're in the middle of an election! Move over Obama and McCain, the WonderHowTo Awards have the best candidates! Issue of the day-- healthcare, more specifically zit care. (To explain the order sequence, this first Jackass video grossed us so far out th ...more

Maybe you've had a long day... or maybe you just want to treat yo' self. So you head to your local watering hole for some tasty, tasty liquor. Your current fave on the cocktail list is a drink of something strong with bitters; you don't know what bitters are, but damn if that ...more

Responding to the emergence of Zika in the US, researchers investigated what type of repellent works best to reduce your odds of a mosquito bite from Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that spreads the Zika virus. Scientists from the Department of Biology at New Mexico State ...more

By looking for the mechanism that allows influenza A to invade lung cells, scientists also discovered a treatment that might block the virus from taking hold there. An infection of the lungs is called pneumonia, which is caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi that target alve ...more

Every party has a pooper, and that's why you're reading this article. We don't mean to be a downer on such a fun day as 4/20, but it's important to make sure you know about the source of your pot, especially if you're one of the 2,299,016 people who use medical marijuana in th ...more

It's like the H-bomb. In slo-mo, it's stunning. In real life, it's terrifying. The footage below was uploaded by YouTube user NielsBorg, unfortunately lacking in description, but offers the following information via headline: "T90 shot taken by Photron camera at 18000 fps". Th ...more

Eating vegetarian isn't just for vegetarians. There are plenty of reasons, health and economics-wise, to consider forgoing the meat for a meal or three. Rather than get deep into the world of fake meat (although there's many a tasty alternative to be found there, to be sure), ...more

Our hacked Kinect series has demonstrated amply how the Kinect is changing the worlds of business, art, medicine and robotics. But where does it go from here? That will be determined by the thousands of dedicated DIYers out there doing work like you've seen here over the last ...more

Until recently, brainwave-reading devices have pretty much only existed in science fiction. Sure, electroencephalography (EEG), the technology that powers these devices, has been used in medicine and psychiatry since the late 1800s, but diagnosing people's brains and reading t ...more

Where in the world did it come from? All of a sudden, one day, someone had an infection with flesh-eating bacteria. It captured headlines and worldwide attention because it was such a severe, strange, uncontrollable, and really disgusting condition. We still might not know wh ...more

I've never understood the phrase "smooth as a baby's bottom" to describe a really close shave. I mean, have you ever touched a baby's cheek? It's even smoother and a lot more sanitary. It just doesn't spew off the tongue as nice. But whatever you say, getting that close shave ...more

Medicine, like the internet, is serious business. So when the text that appears on the labels of our medicine bottles makes about as much sense as an epileptic in a rave club, we can't help but take pause. Follow us on a journey of prescriptions and misdescriptions! Colors Do ...more

Gonorrhea infections reached a peak in 1975, then decreased until 2009, when infection rate started rising and has increased each year since. With the rise of antibiotic resistance, those numbers are only going to get worse — unless we find new treatments against the bacteria. ...more

Most people know atopic dermatitis by its common name, eczema—that dry, flaky skin that itches incessantly. Along with the scratching comes frequent skin infections, often with Staphylococcus aureus. S. aureus skin infections can look like pimples, boils, or red, swollen, and ...more

We encourage everyone (especially breast owners) to please watch. Intently. The UK's Channel 4's fantastic program Embarrassing Bodies is serving up lifesaving health advice. This segment does not sacrifice any details (nipple shots, etc.) to accommodate conventional prudes or ...more

Using a technology we like to call "Hive Computing," several Android apps allow you to contribute idle processing power to help further scientific research. This basically means that when you're not using your phone or tablet, it can join forces with other idle devices to form ...more

Pretty much all of your cleaning supplies can be found in your kitchen or medicine cabinet for dirt cheap. White vinegar can be used to clean shower head deposits and your dishwasher on an empty cycle. Ammonia can be used to clean the gunk off your stove burner grates. And cit ...more

The intestinal parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis has a dramatically increased infection rate this summer, and the source is still unknown, the CDC advised today. 2017 is a good year for Cyclospora looking for homes to start their families and a bad year for those of us who don' ...more

Outstanding advancements in medicine and super creepy Androids aren't the only jaw-dropping inventions out there. Every once in a while, an incredibly random—and at first glance, seemingly useless—device comes along and strikes a chord of strangely deep satisfaction. Behold, t ...more

I'm sure I'm not the only one on here that has googled "Why am I always tired?"... and I'm definitely not alone when I say that all of the advice I've found so far is useless: Go to bed early. (Wow, you think?) Don't skip meals. (Real talk: if I skip meals, it's under extreme ...more

Hospitals are places we go to get well, and we don't expect to get sick or sicker there. But a study from researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Cleveland VA Medical Center in Ohio found that hospital floors in patient room ...more

A sometimes serious disease spread by fleas is making inroads in Texas, quietly doubling case numbers since 2008, and beginning to encroach on larger metropolitan areas. While considered a nuisance on cats and dogs, fleas have spread disease around the world, including plague ...more

Black Mirror, Netflix's technology-horror anthology, never fails to provide thought-provoking entertainment centered around emerging and futuristic technologies, and the third season's second episode, "Playtest," delves deep into the worlds of mixed, augmented, and virtual rea ...more

People who have heart disease get shingles more often than others, and the reason has eluded scientists since they first discovered the link. A new study has found a connection, and it lies in a defective white cell with a sweet tooth. Shingles is a reactivation of the same v ...more

The story of Helicobacter pylori is a real testament to the tenacity of medical researchers to prove their hypothesis. It took decades before the scientific world would accept that the bacteria H. pylori caused ulcers. Now that we know the bacterial culprit can cause peptic u ...more

Findings from a mouse study suggest that the Zika virus infection may have serious reproductive consequences for men. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that often produces no symptoms in men or women. Those who do have symptoms usually experience a minor rash, low-grade fever, p ...more

Laser gun + killing mosquitoes = lots of little boy fun, but what's it all about? Quite possibly the most entertaining, thrilling, and well, downright life-saving presentation at this year's TED conference was Intellectual Ventures' mosquito death ray. The mosquito death ray ...more