Health & Medicine

The first successful dog-to-dog blood transfusion predated the first successful human-to-human one by more than 150 years.

Abdominal thrusts, also known as the Heimlich maneuver, can save a life if someone is choking.

New kinds of brain-scanning technology are being used to study whether babies and even fetuses have consciousness.

There are two FDA-approved blood tests that may detect early Alzheimer's disease.

See which states allow legal medical aid in dying.

Inhalers dilate the airways and reduce inflammation by delivering a medicated dry powder or a soft mist directly into the lungs.

Lethal injections sometimes use pentobarbital, a sedative drug prescribed at low doses to help treat seizures or insomnia.

Explore these social worker tips on how to support someone grieving miscarriage or infant loss.

A mother linked routine anesthesia to her son's brain damage, identifying a single typo in their family's mitochondrial DNA that caused this rare complication.

Explore state maps of the US death penalty, from where it's still legal to where executions have been carried out.

Plague is naturally occurring in the western US, and the country has an average of seven human cases annually.

Six Flags Magic Mountain settled a wrongful death lawsuit after a 22-year-old suffered massive head and brain damage from its X2 roller coaster.

See the latest wastewater monitoring data for COVID-19, Influenza, and RSV, a detection approach that can track disease spread in a community even when people are not showing symptoms.

We hear because soundwaves are converted into electrochemical signals in our ears.

Some estimates suggest between 85% and 95% of Black women in the US have used a chemical hair relaxer at least once, but these products are increasingly linked to harms including certain cancers and fibroids.

See stevia's history of varied uses, including as a treatment for burns and indigestion.

See the surprising history of LSD (better known as acid)—a substance derived from a parasitic fungus—in this 1440 Originals video.

In the UK, as of April 2027, women and their partners will be entitled to two weeks of unpaid leave after a miscarriage.

Amid a massive measles uptick in 2026, at least 6 babies in central Pennsylvania have been born with congenital measles.

Explore how the field of dentistry has evolved from being considered a carnival sideshow to a respected field of medicine.

The CDC set up a national wastewater surveillance system in September 2020 to monitor for viral fragments in our sewage that would indicate circulating disease.

See a breakdown of US annual cancer deaths and newly diagnosed cases.

Learned helplessness, the feeling that nothing you can do matters, leads people to become passive when they face certain types of situations, and can result in feeling anxious and sad.

Safeguards that social media companies created to protect children on their platforms failed at least half the time on Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, according to recent research.

Unlike America's recommendations, Australian authorities don't encourage routine sunscreen use for darker skin tones—reasoning that melanoma risk is low, and it's better to get UV exposure to help the body naturally produce vitamin D.

Dr. Henry Heimlich, famous for his antichoking technique from the 1970s, was a proponent of controversial and discredited approaches, including infecting cancer and HIV patients with malaria to try to trigger a heightened immune response.

The 9/11 plane crashes, which resulted in the collapse of the Twin Towers, created toxic dust with materials including asbestos, silica, metals, concrete, and glass.

Arthritis affects almost 60 million Americans, with about 1 in 5 US adults developing this type of joint pain as they age.

Neutrogena has released the first US sunscreens containing the new FDA-approved ingredient, bemotrizinol, which is less greasy, longer-lasting, and safer than existing chemical sunscreen products—and it has been widely available in other countries for years.

Watch this 1440 Originals video on specialized residential communities designed to mimic towns or neighborhoods for dementia patients.

Supplement sales soared during the pandemic, a trend that has continued even though some of the products don't work.

Watch this 1440 Originals video on specialized residential communities designed to mimic towns or neighborhoods for dementia patients.

Mental health experts caution against youth sports betting even as people in their 20s represent the fastest-growing group of sports gamblers.

Forcing a smile can actually make you feel slightly better, though it won't cure depression.

Monaco has the world's oldest population, with more than 36% of residents aged 65 or older, according to World Bank data.

AI griefbots that generate text or even video avatars of the dead are controversial and could conceivably change how we mourn.

Recent global health estimates suggest that inactivity is a leading risk factor for death, contributing to 6% of deaths worldwide.

Patient portals offer a good opportunity to track your healthcare records and communicate with doctors, but they also allow patients to see test results without context, which can cause unnecessary concern.

NASA worries about the reactivation of dormant viruses during missions—particularly the virus that causes shingles—because spaceflight suppresses the human immune system and elevates stress hormones, making it more challenging to stay healthy.

Postpartum depression typically starts in the weeks following childbirth, and the disorder can keep someone from performing tasks of daily living.

Exertional heatstroke is a leading cause of death among athletes and soldiers in training, and typically occurs when someone sweats intensely while exercising in the heat.

Swimmer's ear is America's most common waterborne illness, accounting for about 65% of annual waterborne illnesses and 20% of hospitalizations in that category.

Wearable sleep trackers like the Oura have variable accuracy for specific sleep-stage data but are helpful for identifying overall trends.

In 1984, a dying infant lived for three weeks with a baboon heart inside her chest.

Stress contributes to gray hair because when the body experiences stress, the sympathetic nervous system releases specific hormones that influence pigment-producing cells.

Early 20th-century debates about horses with 'paranormal mathematical abilities' helped shape modern approaches to psychological research.

Every organ in a mother's body changes during pregnancy as her body produces hormones that relax muscles, allowing for the needed expansion.

Cerebrospinal fluid flushes waste from your brain during sleep, performing a nightly brain cleanup that's an important purpose of sleep.

More than a third of America's incarcerated population has a mental illness.

Less than 1% of Americans are allergic to penicillin, though about 10% of Americans believe they have this allergy.