Wire Health & Science

President Barack Obama supports requiring girls younger than 17 to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill. But fighting that battle in court comes with its own set of risks.

Nancy Bertler and her team took a freezer to the coldest place on Earth, endured weeks of primitive living and risked spending the winter in Antarctic darkness, to go get ice - ice that records our climate's past and could point to its future.

A Utah man is trying to use his recognition as this year's national beekeeper of the year to focus attention on a major threat to the industry: colony collapse disorder.

Shanghai has reported two more cases of human infection of a new strain of bird flu, raising the number of cases in eastern China to 18. Six of the people who contracted the virus have died.

NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator said Friday.

A federal judge has ruled that there should be no age restrictions on the sale of the morning-after pill. A timeline of decisions on the emergency contraception now sold as Plan B One-Step.

President Barack Obama supports requiring girls younger than 17 to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill. But fighting that battle in court comes with its own set of risks.

More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday.

A bird flu virus never before found in humans has grabbed world attention this week after it infected and killed people in China. Scientists have been scrambling to understand how it happened and, more importantly, whether it poses a risk to public health or could potentially spark a global pandemic.

A Nevada state court jury found the state's largest health management organization liable Thursday for $24 million in compensatory damages to three plaintiffs in a negligence lawsuit stemming from a Las Vegas hepatitis C outbreak that lawyers called the largest in U.S. history.

China announced a sixth death from a new bird flu strain Friday, while authorities in Shanghai halted the sale of live fowl and slaughtered all poultry at a market where the virus was detected in pigeons being sold for meat.

Nearly half of young women say the first time they lived with a guy, they weren't married.

Responding to criticism after Superstorm Sandy, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday it would change the way it warns people about tropical storms that morph into something else.

It's the Martian version of spring break: Curiosity and Opportunity, along with their spacecraft friends circling overhead, will take it easy this month because of the sun's interference.

An endangered Florida panther rescued as a kitten and raised in captivity has made a rare run back into the wild.

Children from across the nation will rub elbows with Michelle Obama and dine off fine china in the East Room of the White House this summer as part of a contest to promote healthy eating.

An endangered Florida panther rescued as a kitten and raised in captivity has made a rare run back into the wild.

Cancer and heart disease are bigger killers, but Alzheimer's is the most expensive malady in the U.S., costing families and society $157 billion to $215 billion a year, according to a new study that looked at this in unprecedented detail.

A middle-aged man who transported poultry for a living has died from a new strain of bird flu, the fourth death among 11 confirmed cases in China, the government and state media reported Thursday.

It is one of the cosmos' most mysterious unsolved cases: dark matter. It is supposedly what holds the universe together. We can't see it, but scientists are pretty sure it's out there.

The Czech Republic veterinary authority says horse meat imported from Poland tested positive for phenylbutazone, a drug given to horses that can cause health problems in humans.

After crocheting a colorful blanket, Joan Ferguson snuggled up under it one night and proudly thought: "This is one groovy blanket. I'm brilliant."

Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don't accurately project their income.

A new global plan aims to end most cases of polio by late next year, and essentially eradicate the paralyzing disease by 2018 - if authorities can raise the $5.5 billion needed to do the work, health officials said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed an effort to map the brain's activity in unprecedented detail, as a step toward finding better ways to treat such conditions as Alzheimer's, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injuries.

Hawks swoop in and gobble up songbirds. Raccoons feast on nests of eggs they never could have reached before. Salamanders and wildflowers fade away, crowded out by invasive plants that are altering the soil they need to thrive.

Citing the scope of a public health scare involving thousands of patients of an Oklahoma oral surgeon, the head of the state's dentistry board said Monday she wants prosecutors to consider pursuing criminal charges.

Scientists taking a first look at the genetics of the bird flu strain that recently killed two men in China said Wednesday that the virus could be harder to track than its better-known cousin H5N1 because it might be able to spread silently among poultry without notice.

Starting next year, President Barack Obama's new health care law will offer subsidies to help people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don't already get coverage through their employers. The premiums paid by taxpayers will be tied to their income, with the government subsidies making up any shortfall.

Gov. Susana Martinez on Tuesday signed into law liability-waiving legislation aimed at saving the state's nearly quarter-billion-dollar investment in a futuristic spaceport and retaining its anchor tenant, British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

The Food and Drug Administration says smokers who are trying to quit can safely use over-the counter nicotine gum, patches and lozenges for longer than previously recommended in a move to help millions of Americans kick the habit.

It was the largest algae bloom in Lake Erie's recorded history - a scummy, toxic blob that oozed across nearly one-fifth of the lake's surface during the summer and fall of 2011. It sucked oxygen from the water, clogged boat motors and washed ashore in rotting masses that turned beachgoers' stomachs.

How do you convince millions of average Americans that one of the most complex and controversial programs devised by government may actually be a good deal for them?

Subway riders, after being cautioned about smoking, sugar and teen pregnancy, are getting a new message: Pass on the salt.

China's financial capital, Shanghai, on Tuesday activated an emergency response plan following the recent deaths of two men from a lesser-known strain of bird flu.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has signed legislation banning anyone under 17 from using a tanning bed and anyone under 14 from getting a spray tan a year after the state's Tanning Mom became a tabloid sensation.

India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected drug maker Novartis AG's attempt to patent an updated version of a cancer drug in a landmark decision that health activists say ensures poor patients around the world will get continued access to cheap versions of lifesaving medicines.

Two Shanghai men have died from a lesser-known type of bird flu in the first known human deaths from the strain, and Chinese authorities said it wasn't clear how they were infected but there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

As he rolls through the front door of the sprawling Claremont Club fitness center and shouts a friendly hello here and there, for just a moment it's as if nothing has changed since Hal Hargrave Jr. was the big, friendly teenage gym rat who haunted this place.

The New England cottontail was once so common that Massachusetts author Thornton Burgess adapted one named Peter for the children's stories he penned a century ago.

Health officials say at least 24 people have become sick from an outbreak of E. coli infections linked to frozen snack foods marketed to children.

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued new requirements for cleansing ballast water dumped from ships, which scientists believe has provided a pathway to U.S. waters for invasive species that damage ecosystems and cost the economy billions of dollars.

Three of four reptiles that were swiped from a science museum and thrown together into a garbage bag during a heist were recovered Friday, though a 3-foot-long ball python remained at large, officials said.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar - flushing it out in patients' urine.

New York City is asking appeals judges to reinstate a ban on supersized sodas and other sugary drinks, which was struck down by a Manhattan judge the day before it was to go into effect.

A solar-powered plane that has wowed aviation fans in Europe is set to travel across the United States with stops in Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New York, organizers of the trip announced Thursday.

Government health officials launched the second round of a graphic ad campaign Thursday that is designed to get smokers off tobacco, saying they believe the last effort convinced tens of thousands to quit.

More than 4 out of 5 Americans want to prepare now for rising seas and stronger storms from climate change, a new national survey says. But most are unwilling to keep spending money to restore and protect stricken beaches.

The head of NASA says federal spending cuts could eventually slow progress on commercial efforts to fly to space.