Are We Over-diagnosing Food Allergies?

A recent article in Scientific American revealed that standard allergen tests reveal a false positive 50-60% of the time. This is a major problem, Scientific American explains, because the people who are wrongl...

The $345,250 Hamburger

On August 5, 2013, a media event in London featured the first ever hamburger made from in vitro, “lab grown,” meat (IVM).  For decades, the idea of IVM has been thrown around, but recently the concept has gaine...

Using Light to Fight Pain

The field of optogenetics involves using light to control cells in living tissue such as neurons. Lately, scientists within this field have been working to modify the DNA of neurons so that they either send sig...

Can Preeclampsia Cause Heart Defects?

A new study by Canadian researchers analyzed the relationship between preeclampsia, a common pregnancy complication marked by maternal high blood pressure and protein in the urine, and heart defects in newborns...

Super-Smell: Not Your Average Superpower

Joy Milne can smell Parkinson’s disease. This Scotland native noticed an evident change in her husband’s scent six years before he was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease. When Milne brought up her inc...

Barbecued Meat Linked to Higher Risk of Kidney Cancer

Attention all meat lovers: a recent study reported by the World Health Organization has shown that eating barbecued meat may jeopardize the health of our kidneys. The epidemiological study, conducted at the Uni...

Reducing Mother-To-Child HIV Transmission

Since 2011 the World Health Organization, along with many other international health institutions, has increased their research efforts into the pressing issue of mother-to-child HIV transmission. This initiati...

Controversy in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines

The U.S. Dietary Advisory Committee is set to release an updated version of Dietary Guidelines for Americans later this year.  Even though they are released every five years, this particular set of guidelines i...