Melinda Wenner

Despite the threat of a future in which we have few defenses against deadly bacterial infections, Americans don't seem to be too freaked out. We're still awfully good at over-using antibiotics (by, for instance, using them to treat the wrong types of infections) and not completing antibiotic treatment, both of which increase the risk of bacterial resistance, according to an abstract presented today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Continue reading 'Americans not particularly worried about antibiotic resistance' >

When it comes to the threat of antibiotic resistance, the World Health Organization doesn't mince words: some diseases, it says, "will have no effective therapies within the next ten years." Indeed, more than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections are resistant to at least one of the antibiotics commonly used to treat them, and it's only going to get worse. But a chemical found on amphibian skin—produced in response to stress, injury, or contact with microorganisms—has just been found to kill some drug-resistant bacteria.

Continue reading 'Could frogs save us from MRSA?' >

If you're trying to learn a second language past the age of 12, it's going to be hell, according to research presented today at the conference for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Well, maybe you already knew that -- but perhaps you didn't know why.

Continue reading 'Why I can't speak French' >

Autoimmune diseases have become the third biggest category of disease in the U.S. after cancer and heart disease, and some say that the prevalence is still rising. Now the CDC tells us we've got another gem to add to the mix: "progressive inflammatory neuropathy." It's a fancy if vague name for a collection of symptoms ranging from mild weakness to total short-term paralysis, and it's thought to be caused by the inhalation of pig brain. Yep, you read that right.

Continue reading 'New CDC memo: don't go around snorting pig brains' >

Magnets have been used to treat pain and inflammation for centuries, and many people swear by them -- Americans spend a whopping $500 million a year on products like magnetic bracelets, shoe inserts, and even mattresses. Historically, however, scientific data supporting the efficacy of magnetic therapy has been lacking. But a new study suggests that the tide may be turning -- magnets appear to reduce swelling in certain circumstances, even if know one knows exactly why.

Continue reading 'Could magnets be the ice packs of the future?' >

Once again, South Korean scientists have made cloning headlines. This time around, though, it's not about cloned stem cells -- nope, it's about cloned glow-in-the-dark cats. Sounds ridiculous, maybe, but the scientists claim that what they've done could change medicine.

Continue reading 'The future of medicine = fluorescent kitties?' >

Psychologists have famously found that people subconsciously gravitate towards places and jobs that resemble their names: more "Kens" live in Kentucky and more "Lauras" become lawyers, for example, than what would be predicted by chance alone. But this secret love we harbor for our names can hurt us, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. If your name is associated with something bad, you might gravitate towards the bad, too.

Continue reading 'Does your name define you?' >

Despite the fact that there are millions of people around the world suffering from it, HIV is actually surprisingly hard to transmit. Each time a man has unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man, his risk of becoming infected is only 82 in 10,000, and the risk is even lower for heterosexual sex: a woman only has a 9 in 10,000 chance of contracting the virus from an HIV-positive male during an unprotected sexual encounter. Researchers have long wondered why this is, and whether our bodies have some kind of preliminary line of defense against the virus.

Continue reading 'Why is HIV so prevalent in Africa?' >

Halloween: you either love it or you hate it. But no matter how you feel about it, it is the one day of the year when you can throw away your socially appropriate garb and don whatever crazy persona you choose. On October 31, society gives us the A-OK to throw away our business suits and dress entirely in bubble wrap if we want to—allowing us, essentially, to become someone (or something) else. But I've always wondered: do crazy costumes also make us act a little crazy? Do we not just look out of character on Halloween, but also behave out of character—say, by drinking twice as much as we usually do, committing petty crimes, or having one-night stands?

Luckily, science has some answers.

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Pedophilia has been linked to IQ, education, and even handedness—and a new study adds height to the mix. Pedophiles, are, on average, two centimeters shorter than non-pedophiles, according to research published by the University of Toronto's Center for Addiction and Mental Health. But does this tell us anything about the psychology of a child molester? Actually, it may.

Continue reading 'Anatomy of a child molester: well, he tends to be short' >