You should listen to your mother: always wash your hands. That’s especially true if you work in health care, where poor hand hygiene can be matter of life and death.
Medicine
Environmental Toxins Cost Billions in Childhood Disease
Back in 2002, Philip Landrigan and a team of other researchers at Mount Sinai Medical School estimated the annual cost of four childhood conditions — lead poisoning, cancer, developmental disabilities and asthma — that could …
Big and Tall Men Are More Likely to Suffer Blood Clots
By almost any measure, tall men are winners of the genetic jackpot. They’re perceived as more desirable by potential partners and earn more money than their shorter peers. But height is no advantage when it comes to the risk of …
After Liposuction, the Fat Returns — Just in a Different Place
Who needs diet and exercise, when you’ve got liposuction? The flab-busting procedure is now the most popular plastic surgery in the U.S., with surgeons siphoning fat from the love handles and saddlebags of nearly half a million …
The 9/11 Casualties Still to Come
Last January — more than nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks — Osama bin Laden killed Roy Chelsen. Bin Laden never met Chelsen; that’s not the way it is when you do your killing en masse. And he certainly didn’t kill him quickly.
Why Frequent Business Travelers Are Fatter and Less Healthy
Like a lot of reporters, I spare a fair amount of a time on the road, maybe eight to 10 days a month on average. I like traveling — I wouldn’t have gotten into this line of work if I didn’t — and as TIME’s environment …
House Watch: When Luck Takes Over
House M.D. is usually obsessed with lying, but last night it reached for a lesson in luck. What happens if you win the lottery but also develop three different types of cancer at once?
Brain Size, Early Growth: Clues to Autism’s Causes
There’s been a lot of news recently about efforts to detect signs of autism in children earlier — even before age 2, which is when doctors typically make the first diagnosis based on toddlers’ behavior and development. (Read …
Do Sleepy Babies Grow More? The Science of Growth Spurts
If you’ve ever been frustrated by your baby’s irregular sleep patterns, take heart. A new study suggests that erratic bursts of sleep may correspond to growth spurts.
It’s a Match: How Officials Used DNA to Identify bin Laden
The Obama Administration used several methods, including DNA testing, to confirm that U.S. Navy Seals did in fact kill Osama bin Laden in a weekend raid in Pakistan, U.S. officials said on Monday.
BPA Exposure in Pregnancy May Be Linked to Childhood Asthma
Endocrine disruption, diabetes, obesity — to the list of ills potentially associated with exposure to the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), you can add one more: childhood asthma.
Who’s Using the Morning-After Pill?
The rate of women using emergency contraception in 2006-08 more than doubled, compared with the rate in the previous four to six years, according to a new study from the Guttmacher Institute. So who is taking the “morning-after” pill?
Detecting Autism Early With a 5-Minute Questionnaire
It’s generally better to detect a disease sooner rather than later, but with some slowly progressing conditions, it’s not always possible to pick out the first signs of trouble.