Cancer in your esophagus, the tube that runs from your throat to your stomach, is one of the most frequently reported and a leading cause of cancer deaths around the world. Most cases are reported in developing countries. Early esophageal cancer typically causes no symptoms. However, its chemical markers are …

Researchers say there’s a new calf among the population of critically endangered killer whales that live in the waters between Washington state and Canada.    Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, told The Seattle Times that staff first saw the calf Friday at the eastern end …

A “substantial number” of women would lose free birth control coverage under new rules by the Trump administration that allow more employers to opt out of providing the benefit, a U.S. judge said at a hearing Friday. Judge Haywood Gilliam appeared inclined to grant a request by California and other …

An estimated 69,000 to 84,000 Americans were hospitalized due to the flu in the last three months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday. The nation saw one of the worst flu outbreaks in nearly a decade during the 2017-2018 season, with more than 900,000 cases …

Victoria Graham is a beauty queen. But what is truly extraordinary about this pageant winner are her efforts to overcome a severe genetic condition so that she could use her title wins to highlight her illness. Anush Avetisyan reports from Manchester, Maryland. …

Could the devices being blamed for teen depression be useful in revealing it? Studies have linked heavy smartphone use with worsening teen mental health. But as teens spend time on sites like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, they also leave digital trails that may offer signs about their mental well-being. Experts …

The world’s oceans are rising in temperature faster than previously believed as they absorb most of the world’s growing climate-changing emissions, scientists said Thursday. Ocean heat – recorded by thousands of floating robots – has been setting records repeatedly over the last decade, with 2018 expected to be the hottest …

Congo’s Health Ministry says a baby has been born to a mother who recovered from the Ebola virus — a bright spot in an outbreak that is the second-deadliest in history. The Health Ministry tweeted a photo of “baby Sylvana” in her smiling mother’s arms. The ministry says the baby is …

Astronomers in Canada have detected a mysterious volley of radio waves from far outside our galaxy, according to two studies published Wednesday in Nature. What corner of the universe these powerful waves come from and the forces that produced them remain unknown. The so-called repeating fast radio bursts were identified …

Drivers on the U.S. East Coast may soon start paying for their climate pollution. Nine states and the District of Columbia have announced plans to introduce a system that puts a price on the carbon dioxide produced from burning gasoline and diesel fuel. As the federal government pulls back from …

When Bangkok’s oldest university called for ideas for a symbol to mark its centenary year, landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom successfully pitched a design for a park. It was intended not only as a welcome green space in the middle of the congested city of about 10 million people, but as …

The fight against poverty is getting help from a new direction: up. Satellite imagery is helping researchers map areas of extreme poverty. It may help officials identify faster and more accurately when development policies and programs are working, and when they aren’t. Eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 is the first …

The Australian owners of a restaurant in East Timor are hoping to use their passion for the local cuisine to combat malnutrition in the tiny Southeast Asian nation. East Timor has Asia’s worst rates of child malnutrition, with more than 50 percent of children suffering from stunting – a condition …

An asteroid-circling spacecraft has captured a cool snapshot of home.   NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft took the picture days before going into orbit around asteroid Bennu on New Year’s Eve.   The tiny asteroid — barely one-third of a mile (500 meters) across — appears as a big bright blob in …

The U.S. cancer death rate has hit a milestone: It’s been falling for at least 25 years, according to a new report. Lower smoking rates are translating into fewer deaths. Advances in early detection and treatment also are having a positive impact, experts say. But it’s not all good news. …

Some 435-thousand people died of malaria in 2017, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – according to the World Health Organization. An entrepreneur in Burundi has developed a line of cosmetics that keep mosquitos, which carry malaria, at bay. More from Arash Arabasadi. …

A leading geneticist who ran the conference where a Chinese scientist said he had made the world’s first “gene-edited” babies condemned him on Monday for potentially jeopardizing lives and having no biology training. Robin Lovell-Badge, organizer of the November 2018 event where China’s He Jiankui made his controversial presentation, described …

A group of more than 1,400 iguanas have been reintroduced to an Ecuadoran island in the Galapagos archipelago around two centuries after they disappeared from there, authorities said on Monday. The Galapagos land iguanas from North Seymour Island were freed onto Santiago Island as part of an ecological restoration program, …

A leap in technology has allowed scientists to take their DNA labs out into the fields, so farmers can identify diseases quickly and tackle the problem before their crops die, or the virus spreads to neighboring farms. Faith Lapidus reports. …

Here’s a simple statistic: by 2030, the number of knee replacement surgeries in the U.S. alone is expected to rise over 600 percent. But researchers at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center are now offering an alternative that can relieve the pain and slow the osteoarthritis that most often leads …

A trash collection device deployed to corral plastic litter floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii has broken apart and will be hauled back to dry land for repairs. Boyan Slat, who launched the Pacific Ocean cleanup project, told NBC News last week that the 600-meter (2,000-foot) long …

In 2016, researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal University began sounding alarms that the nation is about a decade away from running out of groundwater. The situation is still dire, but some entrepreneurs are creating new ways to save every drop. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Health care officials in Sweden say a patient who was admitted to a hospital with a suspected case of Ebola was found not to be suffering from the highly infectious and potentially deadly disease after all.  The male patient, whose identity has not been revealed, had recently returned to Sweden from a …

Ebola control operations have been restored in Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-ridden North Kivu province, following pre-election protests late last year, the World Health Organization reports. Anti-government demonstrations preceding presidential elections on December 26 disrupted key Ebola response activities in some affected areas of the province, notably in Beni and …

A suspected case of the deadly Ebola virus has been reported by a Swedish hospital, officials said Friday, adding that the patient has been isolated. Region Uppsala, which oversees several hospitals and medical clinics north of Stockholm, says a test had been carried out on the patient, who was not …