Wire Health & Science

In a story May 17 about a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation on a blood alcohol threshold for drivers, The Associated Press incorrectly reported the definition of a drink. The standard definition of a drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine and 1.5 ounces of 80-proof alcohol.

A Los Angeles doctor was sentenced Friday to 14 years in federal prison for bilking patients out of more than $1 million by promising them that an herbal supplement she hawked could cure late-stage cancer and other diseases.

Surrounded by a turquoise sea and a menagerie of exotic animals on a billionaire's private island, political and business leaders gathered Friday to back an initiative aimed at expanding protection for the Caribbean's imperiled coasts and waters.

One of Alaska's most restless volcanoes shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air Friday in an ongoing eruption that is visible for miles when the weather allows.

The World Health Organization says a yellow fever booster vaccination given 10 years after the initial shot isn't necessary.

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Thursday it will consider listing a population of harbor seals that live in a freshwater Alaska lake as a threatened or endangered species, a decision that could affect the massive Pebble Mine development project.

Officials in Washington state took their first stab at setting rules for the state's new marijuana industry Thursday, nearly eight months after voters here legalized pot for adults.

It's one thing to legalize marijuana. It's another to figure out how to sell it, grow it, regulate it, test it and tax it.

Researchers have detected swine flu in elephant seals off the Central California coast, saying it was the first time a human pandemic strain has been found in marine mammals.

As the guitarist strums and softly sings a lullaby in Spanish, tiny Augustin Morales stops squirming in his hospital crib and closes his eyes.

Two endangered Hawaiian hawks were found wounded on the Big Island after apparently being shot with a pellet gun, and federal wildlife officials want to know who is responsible.

An impromptu spacewalk over the weekend seems to have fixed a big ammonia leak at the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

A new GPS satellite has been launched into space.

Federal weather forecasts for Superstorm Sandy were exceptionally accurate last fall, but the warnings themselves were confusing, an internal review found.

In the new psychiatric manual of mental disorders, grief soon after a loved one's death can be considered major depression. Extreme childhood temper tantrums get a fancy name. And certain "senior moments" are called "mild neurocognitive disorder."

Dr. Jan Brunstrom-Hernandez gently but sternly admonishes a teenage cerebral palsy patient who clearly hasn't been doing his exercises, stressing the importance of keeping muscles loose and limber.

Angelina Jolie's mother had breast cancer and died of ovarian cancer, and her maternal grandmother also had ovarian cancer - strong evidence of an inherited, genetic risk that led the actress to have both of her healthy breasts removed to try to avoid the same fate, her doctor said Wednesday.

A tiny new camera developed at an Illinois university is giving researchers a bug's eye view.

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope is broken, potentially jeopardizing the search for other worlds where life could exist outside our solar system.

Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a longstanding goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson's disease and diabetes.

President Barack Obama is planning a mental health conference next month in response to gun violence.

In a story May 15 about a new SARS-like virus spreading from patients to health care workers in Saudi Arabia, The Associated Press reported erroneously the location of the 20 deaths attributed to the virus. There have been no deaths reported in France and Qatar, only in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and Britain.

When Liz DeRouen needs any kind of health care services, from diabetes counseling to a dental cleaning, she checks into a government-funded clinic in Northern California's wine country that covers all her medical needs.

In a story May 15 about astronauts at the International Space Station getting the new "Star Trek" movie, The Associated Press reported erroneously when the film opened on Earth. "Star Trek into Darkness" opened in the United States on Thursday; it opened in some other countries earlier in May.

A hospital says a Turkish woman who was the first to get pregnant with a transplanted donor womb has had her pregnancy terminated.

An elderly Swiss woman who would rather end her life now than decline further in health found sympathy Tuesday from the European Court of Human Rights, which called on the Swiss to clarify their laws on so-called passive assisted suicide.

Scientists monitoring Alaska's volcanoes have been forced to shut down stations that provide real-time tracking of eruptions and forgo repairs of seismic equipment amid ongoing federal budget cuts - moves that could mean delays in getting vital information to airline pilots and emergency planners.

One of the world's most glamorous women had an operation that once was terribly disfiguring - removal of both breasts. But new approaches are dramatically changing breast surgeries, whether to treat cancer or to prevent it as Angelina Jolie just chose to do. As Jolie said, "the results can be beautiful."

A dozen years after a customer revolt forced Monsanto to ditch its genetically engineered potato, an Idaho company aims to resurrect high-tech spuds.

Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie disclosed Tuesday that she had a preventive mastectomy after learning she had a gene mutation that significantly raised her risk of breast cancer. A look at the procedure:

A surprising new report questions public health efforts to get Americans to sharply cut back on salt, saying it's not clear whether eating super-low levels is worth the struggle.

Treating breast cancer almost always involves surgery, and for years the choice was just having the lump or the whole breast removed. Now, new approaches are dramatically changing the way these operations are done, giving women more options, faster treatment, smaller scars, fewer long-term side effects and better cosmetic results.

In her bad girl days, Angelina Jolie's body was a billboard for tattoos that said such things as "Billy Bob."

The Indian government announced Tuesday the development of a new low-cost vaccine proven effective against a diarrhea-causing virus that is one of the leading causes of childhood deaths across the developing world.

States should cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half- from .08 blood alcohol level to .05-matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries, a federal safety board recommended Tuesday. That's about one drink for a woman weighing less than 120 pounds, two for a 160-pound man.

Wind farms in this corner of Wyoming have killed more than four dozen golden eagles since 2009, one of the deadliest places in the country of its kind.

The government said Tuesday it is pursuing a "vigorous" investigation into a road-building company's near destruction of one of the largest Mayan pyramids in Belize.

New research is raising fresh concern that an age-old treatment for troubled pregnancies - bed rest - doesn't seem to prevent premature birth, and might even worsen that risk.

Cancer patients could face high costs for medications under President Barack Obama's health care law, industry analysts and advocates warn.

A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

In a high-flying, perfectly pitched first, an astronaut on the International Space Station is bowing out of orbit with a musical video: his own custom version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."

The government is running out of time to try to halt implementation of a federal judge's ruling that would lift age restrictions for women and girls wanting to buy the morning-after pill.

U.S. health officials say last year was the worst ever for West Nile virus deaths.

Two respiratory viruses in different parts of the world have captured the attention of global health officials - a novel coronavirus in the Middle East and a new bird flu spreading in China.

The sun has fired off a massive flare, the strongest solar eruption this year.

Another volcano in Alaska is heating up, with seismic instruments signaling a possible eruption, scientists said Monday.

The latest weapon in the U.N.'s fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now.

Berlin's renowned Charite hospital said Monday it plans to investigate allegations that patients in communist East Germany were used as unwitting guinea pigs in medical trials for Western drug companies.

The Obama administration on Monday filed a last-minute appeal to delay the sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill to girls of any age without a prescription.