U.S. health regulators on Monday approved the first prescription drug made from marijuana, a milestone that could spur more research into a drug that remains illegal under federal law, despite growing legalization for recreational and medical use. The Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, called Epidiolex, to treat two …

Hand washing is one of the easiest ways to prevent some diseases. But in refugee camps and temporary shelters, providing access to soap, clean water and sanitation can put increased strain on resources. Officials at the global aid agency Oxfam say they have a solution that may overcome some of …

Languishing with fever and frustrated by delays in diagnosing his illness, Brian Gitta came up with a bright idea: a malaria test that would not need blood samples or specialized laboratory technicians.   That inspiration has won the 25-year-old Ugandan computer scientist a prestigious engineering prize for a noninvasive malaria …

Before it became one of the venues for the World Cup, the city of Volgograd in southwest Russia was famous for an overabundance of small, annoying flies called midges. While the small two-winged flies don’t bite, soccer fans are finding that they don’t leave you alone either. VOA’s Mariama Diallo …

Globalization in the 20th century facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas and technology. But it also helped spread deadly germs and viruses around the world. A new exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History illustrates the impact of these sometimes lethal biological linkages and looks back at the deadliest …

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to keep migrant children with their parents at the southwestern U.S. border, but more than 2,000 children are living in shelters without their families. Doctors and mental health workers are concerned that some of these children will suffer permanent damage. VOA’s Carol Pearson …

Tracking wildlife migration has been historically difficult in the rugged terrain of Alaska. Researchers primarily rely on either surveys or GPS tracking to understand bird migration patterns. Both methods are expensive, either in terms of time or money. And the trackers are often too large or heavy.  One way to …

One more U.S. Embassy employee in Havana, Cuba, has been affected by mysterious health incidents, the State Department said.  State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said one of two Americans recently evacuated from Cuba was “medically confirmed” to have been affected, while the other was “still being evaluated” by doctors.  25 …

Microbes may be helping stir up anxiety and depression in obese people, if results from a new mouse study hold true in humans.  The authors link the effects to how the brain responds to insulin, the hormone that regulates sugar levels in the blood.  The research raises questions about whether …

Fever, chills, and muscle pain aren’t the symptoms just of malaria. They could be signs of leptospirosis, which infects millions of people each year — primarily in tropical regions.  The under-reported disease is usually spread though contact with rodents, but a new study finds this trend may not hold in …

China’s decision to stop accepting plastic waste from other countries is causing plastic to pile up around the globe, and wealthy countries must find a way to slow the accumulation of one of the most ubiquitous materials on the planet, a group of scientists said. The scientists sought to quantify …

June 21st is World Giraffe Day, celebrating the iconic long-necked African animal. But giraffe populations have been decreasing at a rapid pace, and researchers warn they could become extinct in the near future. In northern Kenya, a conservation program is working to protect the native reticulated giraffe, known for its …

Thousands of live animals along with tons of meat, ivory, pangolin scales and timber were seized in a monthlong global crackdown on the illegal wildlife trade that Interpol said exposed the international reach of traffickers. The live animals recovered in the stings included turtles in Malaysia and parrots in Mexico. …

In just 30 years, cities around the world will face dramatically higher risks from extreme heat, coastal flooding, power blackouts and food and water shortages unless climate-changing emissions are curbed, urban researchers warned Tuesday. Today, for instance, over 200 million people in 350 cities face stifling heat where average daily …

Just after a morning rain, Gourma Mamadou was shopping in this capital city’s crowded, open-air Kaloum market. The young man said he was well aware of the current Ebola outbreak simmering some 4,000 kilometers to the southeast in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the World Health Organization reports …

Menstruation often means missing school for many girls in parts of Africa. But should the state provide sanitary products to girls who cannot afford them to prevent them from falling behind in their studies? That question continues to stir debate in several East African countries but especially in Kenya, where …

As a boy growing up in Kansas, Nick Hague looked up at the stars and wanted to explore the unknown. In October, his dream will come true when he blasts off on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. Before rocketing into space from Kazakhstan on Expedition 57 …

At a research facility in Gabon, one isolated building stands behind an electrified fence, under round-the-clock scrutiny by video cameras. The locked-down P4 lab is built to handle the world’s most dangerous viruses, including Ebola. “Only four people, three researchers and a technician, are authorized to go inside the P4,” …

We were warned. On June 23, 1988, a sultry day in Washington, James Hansen told Congress and the world that global warming wasn’t approaching — it had already arrived. The testimony of the top NASA scientist, said Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, was “the opening salvo of the age of …

Exhausted but relieved, Yariani Flores lay next to her healthy newborn son, along with four other Venezuelan women who just gave birth in a hospital in Colombia’s border city of Cucuta. Thousands of Venezuelan women have done the same over the past few years, as the health system in their …

Women must be at the heart of climate action if the world is to limit the deadly impact of disasters such as floods, former Irish president and U.N. rights commissioner Mary Robinson said on Monday. Robinson, also a former U.N. climate envoy, said women were most adversely affected by disasters …

Vowing to reclaim U.S. leadership in space, President Donald Trump announced Monday he is directing the Pentagon to create a new “Space Force” as an independent service branch aimed at ensuring American supremacy in space.   Trump envisioned a bright future for the U.S. space program, pledging to revive the …

For the first time, the World Health Organization is adding Gaming disorder to the section on Mental and Addictive Disorders in its new International Classification of Diseases. The ICD provides data on the causes of thousands of diseases, injuries and deaths across the globe and information on prevention and treatment. …

Astronomers and stargazers will get a chance to get up close and personal with Mars over the next six weeks, as the Earth passes between the Red Planet and the sun. Mars will make its closest swing toward Earth, bringing it closer and appearing brighter, than it has in the …

For 25 years, Patrick Matondo has earned a living buying and selling monkeys, bats and other animals popularly known as bush meat along the Congo River. Standing on the riverbank in Mbandaka, a city affected by the deadly new outbreak of the Ebola virus, the father of five said that …