Brain death is a medical diagnosis without any wiggle room

Brain death is a top source of organ donation

Brain death is a significant source of organ donations because patients declared brain dead and hooked up to intensive care unit machines will still have oxygen flowing to organs like the heart, lungs, and kidneys—preserving those organs.

In 1968, a Harvard Medical School committee issued the first neurological definition of death

The definition set a legal and medical precedent for how we define death, important for issues including organ donation. This 2020 video podcast discusses the history of brain death controversies and the variability in how death has been determined, including discussions in the late 1960s about when patients are considered dead in the context of organ donations.

Brain death is very rare—only 2% of hospital patients have brain death in the US

A peer-reviewed analysis examining US hospital billing code data from 2012 to 2016 concluded that the incidence of brain death is about 2% in the country. There was no available information indicating what proportion of those patients underwent organ donation.

Watch this 2021 video demonstrating a full brain death examination

This video and accompanying article in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine show the then-standard steps of a full brain death examination—demonstrating the process on a medical dummy to search for pain, blinking, eye movement, cough, gagging, or other forms of responsiveness. (May need to sign up for a free account to view.)

Observant Catholics can donate organs because the official Catholic stance is brain death is death—enabling organ donation

The Vatican states that brain death, when properly diagnosed, means that a person is dead even though machines can keep them alive. That official stance from Catholic leadership and echoed by most Catholic doctors and ethicists enables the families of observant Catholics to proceed with organ donation.

Brain death is a uniquely modern problem stemming from modern ventilators

Patients who would have once died from devastating brain injury can now live on a ventilator for a long period of time, creating ethical, medical, and legal dilemmas.

A 13-year-old was declared brain-dead yet went through puberty on a ventilator

This podcast details Jahi McMath's highly controversial case. She was declared brain-dead in 2013 following surgical complications, but her family, citing religious beliefs, kept her connected to a ventilator for the five years that followed. She continued to grow and went through puberty before being issued a second death certificate in New Jersey.

What happens in a dying brain?

Near-death experiences usually happen during death or on the border of life and death when a person isn't understood to be conscious. This article details the science of what's going on with the brain during NDEs.

Four in 10 CPR patients report consciousness not captured by standard measures

A recent study found people revived by CPR after cardiac arrest reported they experienced some amount of consciousness during clinical death, suggesting our brains are capable of thought and memory for significantly longer after death than previously thought.

American medical organizations rescind recognition of diagnosis cited in police custody deaths

American medical organizations have rescinded their recognition of a syndrome whose theory stemmed from discredited research. This article explores the history and implications of "excited delirium syndrome," a medical condition that can reportedly...

Some UK doctors pushed for broad 'do not resuscitate' orders for autistic adults during COVID

The controversial push was to create such orders without individuals' or their families' consent, underscoring modern-day prejudice against people on the spectrum.

Deep brain stimulation helps manage movement in patients with neurological disorders

DBS is a surgical procedure that uses implanted electrodes to send electrical signals to targeted areas in the brain, interrupting abnormal neural activity. It may be implemented when medications lose effectiveness or cause disruptive side effects.

Left versus right brain strokes vary significantly in long-term effects

Due to the high complexity of the brain, the aftereffects of a stroke can have widely different manifestations, ranging from minor temporary impairments to rapid death. Whether a stroke results in paralysis, speech impairments, loss of bodily function, or death will depend on whether it occurs in the left or right hemispheres or the brain stem.

The medical profession has a dark history of 'body snatching' for education

This term originally referred to secretly removing corpses from graves for sale—usually to medical schools where they were used for education. The practice dates back at least to the 1300s but still—much more rarely—persists today.

A living will is a legal document spelling out your medical wishes for emergency care

This legal document makes it explicit if you want medical interventions in the event of an emergency, including CPR, feeding tubes, ventilator assistance to push air into your lungs to help you breathe, and more. Talking with your doctor about this is covered by Medicare.

How MS is diagnosed with brain and spinal cord MRIs and eye tests

There's no definitive test for MS, but to make a diagnosis doctors typically use MRIs of the brain and spinal cord to hunt for telltale lesions. Also, optic nerve tests to see how quickly information travels down the optic nerve—since degraded myelin sheaths will slow electrical signals between the eye and brain.

Grip strength predicts death better than blood pressure

In a study covering about 140,000 people across 17 countries, scientists found that for every 5 kilogram drop in adults' grip strength, it raised the risk of death by 16%. Grip strength, the research found, was a stronger predictor of cardiovascular death than systolic blood pressure.

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

Yet the tests are only recommended for those who have symptoms of dementia, and are not definitive on their own. False positives are a concern with these new tests, which detect biomarkers that may indicate the presence of brain proteins linked to the disease. This podcast explores the state of research on the disease and concerns about regulators taking jobs at pharmaceutical and biotech companies, which may influence their approach to approvals. It also dives into an investigation about the data underpinning one experimental Alzheimer's drug.

Cerebrospinal fluid flushes waste from your brain during sleep

Recent research suggests a nightly brain cleanup as an important purpose of sleep. Brain waves have been observed to work in lockstep with the brain’s blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid flow, allowing for a cleansing tide that washes away toxic waste.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Heatstroke treatment guidelines were built almost exclusively on research in men

Protocols for the standard treatment recommendation for heatstroke—whole-body cold water immersion—were built based on studies almost entirely in men. The research wasn't replicated in women, who typically cool faster than men during cold water immersion, raising questions about standard protocol safety for women, due to the risk of overcooling.

Prolonged Grief Disorder has certain recognizable risk factors

This official diagnosis is characterized by intense, daily symptoms of grief a year after the loss of a loved one among adults and faster—around at least six months—for kids and teens. Factors that put people at increased risk of this disorder include being single, attachment anxiety, violent or unnatural death, low education, low income, and multiple losses, among others.

When is it OK to dig up the dead?

Human bones tell stories that would otherwise be lost to history. But archaeologists are increasingly confronted with demands to let past generations rest in peace, according to this article.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Everything scientists could learn by looking at your skull

Our skulls are all unique, but they also share characteristics across groups of people. In the absence of fingerprints, forensic scientists can learn a lot about you just from your skull.

Using stem cells for bone marrow transplants

Stem cells hold promise for many future medical applications, but only one type of stem cell is currently approved for use. This page offers a clear description of adult stem cells called hematopoietic stem cells, which create the full range of blood cells and are approved for use in treatments such as bone marrow transplants.

A pregnant woman's brain sheds gray matter, perhaps explaining 'baby brain'

The brain areas involved in processing information and emotions decrease by an average of almost 5% during pregnancy. Researchers discovered in a 2025 study that this mostly temporary change—the brain hadn't fully returned to its normal size six months after pregnancy—seems to be associated with self-reported improved bonding and less hostility toward the child postpartum.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.