Michaeleen Doucleff

There are a few populations in the world where back pain hardly exists. One woman thinks she has figured out why, and she's sharing their secrets. Have Americans forgotten how to stand properly?

In the past week, cases of the Middle East respiratory syndrome have more than tripled in South Korea. Researchers now have a clue to why the outbreak has grown so large, so quickly.

The consensus is that the World Health Organization's performance on Ebola was miserable. At the agency's annual meeting, the WHO is set to adopt reforms to make sure what happened with Ebola doesn't happen again.

Making morphine — or heroin*, for that matter — isn't easy. You have to know a bunch of fancy chemistry to synthesize the drug from scratch. Or you have to get your hands on some opium poppies and extract morphine from the flowers' milky juice.

The latter is tougher than ...

New charities pop up all the time. But how do you know which ones work? Economists have come up with a strategy to figure it out. They've used it to tackle one of the biggest problems in the world.

Here at the Goats and Soda blog, we talk a lot about tiny critters moving around the globe — and often causing trouble.

Last summer it was Ebola hopping on a plane to Texas. Then a painful virus from eastern Africa, called chikungunya, found its way to Florida via ...

When the U.S. introduced the measles vaccine, childhood deaths from all infections plummeted. Scientists think they might know why: Benefits of the measles vaccine go way beyond the measles.

The first genetically modified crop wasn't made by a megacorporation. Or a college scientist trying to design a more durable tomato. Nope. Nature did it — at least 8,000 years ago.

Well, actually bacteria in the soil were the engineers. And the microbe's handiwork is present in sweet potatoes all ...

It took 15 years and 250 million vaccines, but this week, health authorities officially declared North America and South America free of rubella — a virus that can cause severe birth defects.

Looks like many of us don't have the right stomach for a paleodiet. Literally.

Two studies give us a glimpse into our ancestors' microbiome — you know, those trillions of bacteria that live in the human gut.

And the take-home message of the studies is clear: Western diets and modern-day ...

It began with anxiety and depression. A few months later, hallucinations appeared.

Then the Texas man, in his 40s, couldn't feel the left side of his face.

He thought the symptoms were because of a recent car accident. But the psychiatric problems got worse. And some doctors thought the man ...

Right after birth, trillions of microbes rush into a baby's gut and start to grow. Most of these critters come from the mom's skin, birth canal and gut.

But exactly which types of bacteria take up residence in an infant's gut can depend on the mother's DNA, scientists reported Thursday.

...

We're not talking about just a smidge. Roughly 10 percent of samples tested contained at least 10 percent cow's milk. Doctors say the diluted milk could be dangerous for babies for several reasons.

This time last year, a painful new virus was knocking on our doorstep. Travelers were bringing chikungunya to the U.S. And eventually, the mosquito-borne virus set up shop in Florida.

Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says another nasty pathogen is hitching a ride to the U.S. ...

Hidden inside all of us are likely thousands of viruses — maybe more. They just hang out, harmlessly. We don't even know they're there.

But every once in a while, one of these viral inhabitants might help us out.

Young people infected with a type of herpes virus have a ...

Back in August, scientists published a worrisome report about Ebola in West Africa: The virus was rapidly changing its genetic code as it spread through people. Ebola was mutating about twice as fast as it did in previous outbreaks, a team from Harvard University found.

The study spurred a ...

The videos are almost unbelievable. Ketchup slides out of the jar and you don't even have to give it a thump. Glue slips out of the bottle without a molecule left inside. And what about getting that last smidgen of toothpaste from a used tube? No problem.

Welcome to the ...

Sorry bacon lovers, we've got some sad news about your favorite meat.

To get those sizzling strips of pork on your plate each morning takes more antibiotics than it does to make a steak burrito or a chicken sausage sandwich.

Pig farmers around the world, on average, use nearly four ...

A child stricken with the deadliest form of the disease can quickly fall unconscious and die. A doctor in Michigan has dedicated her life to figuring out how this happens. At last, she has the answer.

The Midland, Texas, Police Department and others assisted the ATF in detonating the illegal fireworks. It took them 3 1/2 days.