Tiffany O'Callaghan

Tiffany O'Callaghan has been a contributing health and science reporter for TIME and TIME.com since August 2007. She is based in Seattle.

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+Food & Drink | August 14, 2009

Using mango seeds to kill bacteria

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

By processing mango pits instead of throwing them away, one University of Alberta researcher discovered a novel way to preserve food—and potentially combat dangerous bacterial infections such as Listeriosis. An outbreak of the illness last year in Canada left at least 21 people dead, making the findings published recently in the Journal of Agricultural and [...]

+Mental Health | August 13, 2009

Gays and lesbians far more likely than heterosexuals to seek counseling

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

Compared with heterosexuals, more than twice as many gays, lesbians and bisexuals seek counseling for mental health problems or substance abuse, according to research from the University of California, Los Angeles. In a survey of more than 2,000 people between the ages of 18 and 64, researchers found that 48.5% of homosexuals and bisexuals had [...]

+August 13, 2009

The “language barriers” of facial expressions

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

Trying to communicate without a common language can be an exercise in bizarre and energetic gesturing, combined with exaggerated facial expressions. Yet, according to research published online in Current Biology, it’s not just our words, but even our smiles and frowns that can get lost in translation. A team of researchers led by Rachael E. [...]

+August 13, 2009

Does Air Travel Increase Your Risk for Getting Sick?

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

Whenever there is an outbreak of disease—be it SARS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, or now, swine flu—there is an accompanying wave of fear about the myriad ways in which people can put themselves at risk. And, considering air travel confines you to a shared space with a bunch of potentially sick strangers for hours on end, there [...]

+August 12, 2009

A case for using drug labels to curb health care costs

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

In an essay published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a trio of medical researchers team up to propose a novel way to trim some of the nation’s ballooning health care costs: require FDA labeling to include information on how new drugs compare to existing remedies. Not exactly clear how [...]

+Uncategorized | August 12, 2009

Trade you an eye exam for a carpet cleaning?

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

With the economy in a rut, it appears that more people are turning to old-school trading of goods and services in exchange for health care. The Associated Press reported yesterday that “old-fashioned bartering has seen brisk growth since the economy soured.” To illustrate this, they point to companies like ITEX Corp., a Bellevue, Washington-based bartering [...]

+Sexuality | August 11, 2009

The Science of One-Night Stands

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

In a confirmation of persistent stereotypes, an international team of psychologists have determined that when it comes to one-night stands, men have much lower standards than women do. The study, published in the journal Human Nature, revealed that when asked whether they would “go out with,” “go home with,” or “go to bed with,” a [...]

+Mental Health | August 11, 2009

Neurological clues to how alcoholics process emotion

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

Alcoholics’ brains may process emotion differently than those of people who don’t have a history of alcohol abuse, according to a study published in the November issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. There is ample research analyzing how alcoholics tend to process emotion distinctly and with a range of behaviors—often misinterpreting nonverbal [...]

+Stress | August 11, 2009

Do working women get lower quality sleep than men?

By Tiffany O'Callaghan

While domestic responsibilities are slowly being divvied up more equally among men and women with the increasing prevalence of working moms and stay-at-home dads, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that women still shoulder most of the household and child-rearing responsibilities. A study highlighted by the Economist earlier this year found that, across 18 countries, [...]