Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in DRC, health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients. Out of 57 recorded cases as of Monday, 41 were fatal, the Congolese Health Ministry and UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said. …

Animal-assisted therapy is a growing field that uses animals to help people recover from or better cope with health problems, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders. While the most common therapy animal is dogs, the use of other creatures is on the rise. More from Faith Lapidus. …

You know your cholesterol, your blood pressure … your heart gene score? Researchers say a new way of analyzing genetic test data may one day help identify people at high risk of a youthful heart attack in time to help. Today, gene testing mostly focuses on rare mutations in one …

Lauren Woeher wonders if her 16-month-old daughter has been harmed by tap water contaminated with toxic industrial compounds used in products like nonstick cookware, carpets, firefighting foam and fast-food wrappers. Henry Betz, at 76, rattles around his house alone at night, thinking about the water his family unknowingly drank for …

The U.N. refugee agency reports it is stepping up efforts to reduce the risk of the spread of the deadly Ebola virus as refugees flee DR Congo. Latest estimates put the number of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in eastern DRC at 49, including 38 deaths. The U.N. refugee …

Italians are divided between those who think parents should have the right to decide whether to vaccinate their children and those who feel immunization programs must be decided by the government, which they believe has better access to information. Vaccine regulations differ widely across Europe, and the current situation in …

Australian scientists have test driven two cars powered by a carbon-free fuel derived from ammonia.  A team from the Australian government’s research agency, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), says the pioneering technology will allow highly flammable hydrogen to be safely transported in the form of ammonia and …

Brazil cut its greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in 2017 to levels below its internationally agreed 2020 climate change targets, the country’s Environment Ministry said Thursday. Brazil reduced its emission from deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 610 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), compared to its 2020 target of …

The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is stepping down after a 14-month tenure in which the agency proposed broad changes to rules governing protections for thousands of species and pushed for more hunting and fishing on federal lands, officials said Thursday. Greg Sheehan will leave the agency …

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration endangered public health when it overturned an Obama-era rule banning a dangerous pesticide. In a 2-to-1 decision, the Seattle-based court gave the Environmental Protection Agency 60 days to pull chlorpyrifos from the market, one of the most widely used pesticides …

Joshua Okumu’s wife, Mary Mwanja, died during childbirth 18 years ago at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi. But their daughter survived.  When he picked up his newborn baby at the nursery, grief-stricken and shocked, Okumu was not entirely sure how to feed her. “So when I reached home, I started …

The Pentagon is taking new steps to create a space force by 2020 in order to “meet the emerging threats on this new battlefield,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday. Speaking at the Pentagon, Pence announced, “Now the time has come to write the next great chapter in the history …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence says President Donald Trump’s proposed Space Force is necessary  to “meet the emerging threats on this new battlefied.” “Now the time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield … The time …

Life has found a way to survive in some of the most extreme conditions imaginable. Now, scientists believe they might have found a new habitat for hardy microbes — inside garnets. New research found unusual patterns of tunnels in Thai garnets with deposits of fatty acids in the burrowed pathways, …

After Ireland voted to legalize abortion in May, will Argentina, another traditionally Catholic country, do the same? The country’s senators will make the decision Wednesday, amid fiercely polarized campaigns on both sides of the hot-button issue. The bill was passed by Congress’ lower house in June by the narrowest of …

Most people who use online dating websites seek partners who are out of their league, said a study Wednesday based on heterosexuals in four big US cities. “Both men and women pursued partners about 25 percent more ‘desirable’ than themselves,” said the report in the journal Science Advances. Hardly anyone …

A red-hot voyage to the sun is going to bring us closer to our star than ever before.   NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will get nearly seven times closer to the sun than previous spacecraft. It will hurtle through the sizzling solar atmosphere and come within nearly 4 million miles …

The World Health Organization says experts are starting to carry out Ebola vaccinations in Congo’s latest deadly outbreak. Health officials have warned that containing the outbreak is complicated by the presence of multiple armed groups in the northeast region that borders Uganda and Rwanda.   Congo’s health ministry says at …

Many parts of the world are experiencing record heat this summer, with temperatures soaring well above 40 degrees Celsius in places where 35 used to be the high. The largest-ever forest fires are raging in the U.S. western state of California after deadly flames swept along coastal Greece. Some Asian …

The World Health Organization says vaccinations are expected to begin this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday, to help stem the latest Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.  WHO estimates put the number of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola at 43, including 34 deaths.   The …

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Tuesday morning, on a mission to deploy a communications satellite. SpaceX says not long after the rocket lifted off, the Falcon’s re-usable first stage booster landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The second stage stayed …

Astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is 12 times the size of Jupiter, striking not only for its size but also for the fact that it is not orbiting any star.  The so-called “rogue” planet does not revolve around a star, but instead rotates around the …

Non-government organizations and researchers are calling on the Lao Government to ensure transparency in its investigations on Lao populations affected by massive flooding from a breach in a hydropower dam wall that left more than two dozen people dead last month in southern Laos. The southern Lao township of Attapeu, …

While many people complain of struggling to put a name to a face, a rare disorder causes some people to not recognize faces at all. Prosopagnosia, also called face blindness, is a brain disorder in which people cannot recognize faces, sometimes even those of their family. Sadie Witkowski has more. …

An Egyptian boy born with a disability is making waves in the swimming pool. His arms are short from a rare disease, but that’s not stopping him from chasing his dream. Arash Arabasadi reports. …