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.

Articles from Contributor

What’s the best way to quit smoking?

With so many options on the market for programs, pills and treatments to help you kick the habit, how can you tell which is the best method to use? TIME asked Dr. Michael Fiore, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and founder of the school’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.

When lost or disoriented, people really do walk in circles

By tracking humans as they wandered in the forest, desert and blindfolded through a giant field, scientists determined that there is some truth to the popular belief—when people are lost, we actually do walk in circles.

It has long been common perception that people tend to meander in orbits when disoriented, and in fact, scientists

Can you really worry yourself sick?

A study published this week in the Journal of Research in Personality finds that personality traits that cause people to worry too much and endure chronic stress may actually increase their risk for illness and premature death. A handful of studies have shown that neuroticism—broadly, the tendency to worry too much—can actually be

Smokers’ tongues less sensitive to taste

Adding to research that shows smoking can dull your sense of taste, a group of Greek ear, nose and throat specialists and physiologists recently conducted a study of 62 male soldiers—34 of whom were non-smokers, and 28 smokers—measuring their sense of taste using a technique called electrogustometry. The method entails administering

Suicidal thoughts among Asian American women

A study of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the Asian American community reveals that U.S.-born women of Asian descent have alarmingly high rates of suicidal ideation—thoughts of suicide—compared with the general U.S. population. Nationally, an average of 13.5% of people will contemplate suicide in their lifetime, among Asian

What causes tone-deafness?

A new study from researchers at Beth Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School suggests that tone-deafness may be the result of a missing neural connection. By using a brain imaging technique that allows them to examine the links between the right temporal and frontal lobes, the scientists compared the neural connectivity of 10

A patch to take the ouch out of shots

What if, instead of having to brave a hypodermic needle each time you needed a shot, you could simply slap on a patch and go about your day? According to some preliminary research from scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, that possibility may be just a few years off.

Can running be addictive?

As the saying goes, everything in moderation. While regular exercise is good for you for a host of reasons—reducing your risk for disease, helping to preserve cognitive abilities and protect mental health, and improving your overall heart health, to name some—according to a study of rats conducted by a team of psychologists at Tufts

Using the “smell of death” to solve crimes

Scientists and police detectives alike have long known that decomposing human bodies give off some ghastly smells—caused by the emission of the aptly named gases “cadaverine” and “putrescine,” among others—and that being able to sniff out those unseemly aromas can be critical at crime scenes or in the aftermath of a disaster as

Playing too many video games may be bad for you too, grown ups

In the past, research into the negative health impact of spending too many hours each day glued to a TV set, video game console or computer screen has focused on “tweens” and adolescents, generally between the ages of 8-18. While this age group certainly earns their reputation as gamers—with 59–73% manning the controller on an

Our health care’s not so bad, Brits point out

In the heated exchanges flying back and forth about President Obama’s proposed health care reform, some barbs have been landing a bit far afield, namely, on the other side of the Atlantic. And while moaning about the National Health Service (NHS)—the United Kingdom’s universal health care provider—may be a favorite pastime for Brits,

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