The World Health Organization says the number of measles cases in Europe jumped sharply during the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 people have died. The U.N. agency’s European office said Monday more than 41,000 measles cases were reported in the region during the first half of …

U.N. agencies and the Bangladesh government have begun distributing liquid petroleum gas stoves in Cox’s Bazar to help prevent further deforestation, which has been accelerating with the huge influx of Rohingya refugees during the past year. Cox’s Bazar is home to large areas of protected forest and an important wildlife …

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has abandoned plans to enshrine the nation’s targeted limits of greenhouse gas emissions into law in the face of an angry revolt by his party’s staunch conservatives. Australia set a target to cut carbon emissions by 26 percent below 2005 by the year 2030, as …

The World Health Organization says security issues could hamper efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak is in conflict-ridden North Kivu province, where some areas are too dangerous for health care workers to go. As of Wednesday, about two weeks after the …

U.S. health officials Thursday approved a new generic version of EpiPen, the emergency allergy medication that triggered a public backlash because of its rising price tag. The new version from Teva Pharmaceuticals is the first that will be interchangeable with the original penlike injector sold by Mylan. The Food and …

In 1995, a patient sick with the Ebola virus, in what was then called Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, miraculously recovered from this deadly disease. At that time, when the virus first jumped from animals to man, Ebola meant almost certain death. Doctors found that …

More than 100 cases of measles have been diagnosed this year in 21 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. As of July 14, 107 people had contracted the viral infection in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, …

The scientific community has long acknowledged that vaccines work and have saved millions of lives. However, a vocal community, particularly in the U.S., believes that vaccines expose children to health risks and can cause harm. It can be easy to write off these opinions, but psychology researchers have long known …

A mobile blood-testing lab. Hand-washing stations on street corners. Motorcycle taxi drivers forbidden from sharing spare helmets. If Ebola is coming, the city of Goma in eastern Congo wants to be ready. An outbreak suspected of killing 43 people is spreading across the lush farmlands of eastern Congo, where ethnic and military conflicts threaten to …

Carli Leon remembers hearing the story of a young boy in Spain who died after contracting diphtheria. The 6-year-old boy’s parents had chosen not to have him vaccinated, and he died 28 days after initially showing symptoms. “One of those things that anti-vaxx people say is, ‘Well, [the] U.S. is …

Tropical Storm Lane is pushing westward across the Pacific while Subtropical Storm Ernesto heads across the Atlantic in the general direction of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said early Thursday that Lane had winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and is expected to strengthen into …

Scientists in Florida are on the cusp of developing promising methods to control toxic algae blooms like the “red tide” that has been killing marine life along a 150 mile (240 km) stretch of the Gulf Coast, the head of a leading marine lab said Wednesday. Michael Crosby, president and …

The dismissal of a lawsuit filed by young people claiming government climate policy falls short will be appealed and marks a minor setback in pursuing legal action on behalf of youth and their rights, experts said. The legal complaint arguing that the state of Washington must do more to cut carbon emissions was dismissed …

U.S. health officials are eliminating special regulations for gene therapy experiments, saying that what was once exotic science is quickly becoming an established form of medical care with no extraordinary risks. A special National Institutes of Health oversight panel will no longer review all gene therapy applications and will instead …

Britain’s hottest summer in decades has revealed cropmarks across the country showing the sites of Iron Age settlements, Roman farms and even Neolithic monuments dating back thousands of years, archaeologists said Wednesday. Cropmarks — patterns of shading in crops and grass seen most clearly from the air — form faster …

If you quit smoking and gain weight, it may seem like you’re trading one set of health problems for another. But a new U.S. study finds you’re still better off in the long run. Compared with smokers, even the quitters who gained the most weight had at least a 50 …

Even the oceans are breaking temperature records in this summer of heat waves. Off the San Diego coast, scientists earlier this month recorded the highest seawater temperatures since daily measurements began in 1916. “Just like we have heat waves on land, we also have heat waves in the ocean,” said …

Russian cosmonauts took a spacewalk Wednesday to fling tiny satellites into orbit and install an antenna for tracking birds on Earth. Soon after leaving the International Space Station, Sergey Prokopyev released all four research satellites by hand.  “I’m ready for the launch,” Prokopyev told Russian flight controllers near Moscow. The …

Three scientists will share a $500,000 medical prize for their studies of the immune system that have led to innovative treatments for cancer, HIV and other diseases. The recipients of the annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research were announced Wednesday. They are being recognized for their …

The Canadian government said on Wednesday it would move to restrict use of two types of crop chemicals that have been linked to deaths of aquatic insects and bees, in a victory for environmentalists and the latest setback for companies that sell the pesticides. Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency …

Now that plastic straws may be headed for extinction, could Americans’ love of balloons be deflated? The joyous celebration of releasing balloons into the air has long bothered environmentalists, who say the pieces that fall back to earth can be deadly to seabirds and turtles that eat them. So as …

Only four ingredients are needed to make one of the oldest staples of mankind. Mix water, hops, malt and yeast and you’re well on your way to making beer. But as Sadie Witkowski reports, it’s the smallest ingredient in beer that’s making the biggest splash. …

Hailstorms inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage yearly in North America alone, and the cost will rise as the growing population builds more homes, offices and factories, climate and weather experts said Tuesday. The role of climate change in hailstorms is harder to assess, the experts said at a …

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has started using the experimental mAb114 Ebola treatment to counter the latest flare-up of the virus, health officials said Tuesday, the first time it has been deployed against an active outbreak. Forty-two people are believed to have died from the hemorrhagic fever in Congo’s 10th Ebola outbreak since …

World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the raging conflict in North Kivu makes the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo more dangerous than the historic 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa.  More than 11,000 people died from the Ebola virus by the time it was contained in 2016.  WHO …