Medicine

An illustration of Washington's imagined deathbed scene, painted about 50 years after his death.

George Washington’s Hard Death Shows the Limits of Medicine in His Time

He’s one of the United States’s most revered figures, but his last hours were plagued by excruciating illness

Acinetobacter baumannii

Instead of Killing Bacteria, Can We Just "Turn Off" Its Ability To Cause Infections?

Researchers could have an answer to antibiotic resistance, and it involves using epigenetics to reprogram bacteria

To find the roots of an unlikely connection, researchers are untangling lemur microbiomes. Here, ring-tailed lemurs feast at Serengeti Park in Hodenhagen, Germany.

What Lemur Guts Can Tell Us About Human Bowel Disease

Similarities between us and the cuddly primates could help us understand the origins of human illnesses—and treat them

With a low cost attachment, Joshua Broder can upgrade a 2D ultrasound machine to 3D.

How a Wii Handset Inspired a Low-Cost 3D Ultrasound

After playing games with his son, a Duke physician invented a medical tool that could put ultrasound imaging in the hands of more doctors

Stanford radiologist Matthew Lungren, left, meets with graduate students Jeremy Irvin and Pranav Rajpurkar to discuss the results of detections made by the algorithm.

Can an Algorithm Diagnose Pneumonia?

Stanford researchers claim they can detect the lung infection more accurately than an experienced radiologist. Some radiologists aren't so sure.

The interior of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub after the fire.

Three Medical Breakthroughs That Can Be Traced Back to a Tragic Nightclub Fire

Four hundred ninety-two people died as a result of the horrifying fire, an unprecedented death toll that led physicians to make unprecedented innovations

Female match workers in the 1870s.

Friction Matches Were a Boon to Those Lighting Fires–Not So Much to Matchmakers

Those who worked in match factories were exposed to white phosphorus, which caused a debilitating and potentially deadly condition

Plants are keeping time.

To Make Precision Medicine, Scientists Study the Circadian Rhythms in Plants

Biologists are taking a close look at how precisely calibrated timekeepers in organisms influence plant-pathogen interactions

H1N1 influenza virus particles shown in a colorized transmission electron micrograph

Scientists Are One Step Closer to a "Personalized" Flu Shot

While still decades away, new research shows how custom vaccines could be developed

This drug delivery system folds up to fit in a capsule, then would reopen in the stomach

Can Digital Pills and Drug Delivery Systems Get People to Take Their Meds?

They are among new approaches to dealing with a big problem in American health care

This Hero Rallied Wounded USS Indianapolis Survivors

Dehydrated, exhausted, and preyed upon by sharks, the surviving crew of the sunken USS Indianapolis was in a living nightmare

Your Brain Swells—Then Deflates—While You Learn

Researchers hypothesize that the brain "auditions" various cells that form, but only keeps the best of the best

Did you get that injury during the night or day? It might be telling about how long it'll take to heal.

Why Wounds Heal Faster During the Day Than at Night

A new study suggests that you should consider staying away from sharp objects at night

Chopin at 25, by his fiancée Maria Wodzińska.

Chopin’s Preserved Heart May Offer Clues About His Death

Scientists who recently examined the organ have suggested that Chopin died of complications from tuberculosis

A demonstration of the technology, with the light fabric sewn into a onesie

These Light-Emitting Pajamas Could Help Treat Newborns With Jaundice

The method has an advantage over traditional phototherapy in that it allows babies to receive treatment in the comfort of their parents' arms

Harriot Hunt was accepted into Harvard Medical school and treated hundreds of patients over her 25-year-career, blazing a trail for future generations of female physicians.

The Medical Practitioner Who Paved the Way for Women Doctors in America

Harriot Hunt refused to let her gender limit her ambitions—or those of the next generation of physicians

The British Museum was the first free, public natural history museum in the world—but its creator, Hans Sloane, was intricately connected with the slave trade.

The British Museum Was a Wonder of Its Time—But Also a Product of Slavery

A new book explores the little-known life and career of Hans Sloane, whose collections led to the founding of the British Museum

The bottle of multivitamins at left were typical of the ways Americans became addicted to amphetamines.

A Speedy History of America’s Addiction to Amphetamine

In a startling parallel to today’s opioid crisis, the drugs were liberally—and legally—prescribed despite little information on safety

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The Next Pandemic

With Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Museum of Natural History, we look at the past, present and future of the flu

Flu pandemics begin when novel animal viruses start spreading between people.

How to Stop a Lethal Virus

With tens of millions of lives at stake, medical researchers are racing to create a revolutionary flu vaccine before the next devastating epidemic

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