California officials, having concluded coffee drinking is not a risky pastime, are proposing a regulation that will essentially tell consumers of America’s favorite beverage they can drink up without fear. The unprecedented action Friday by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to propose a regulation to clear coffee of …

Researchers in Hungary who found that normal and overweight dogs behaved differently in tasks involving food say the dogs’ responses were similar to those that might be expected from normal and overweight humans. The study suggested dogs could be used as models for future research into the causes and psychological impact of human obesity, the authors …

U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, who has spent more time in space than any other American, retired Friday. During her career, Whitson logged 665 days in space over three missions, the equivalent of about one year and 10 months outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Whitson was also the first woman to command …

By now, you have probably heard that suicide rates in the United States have increased sharply over the past two decades. There was a lot of media coverage after fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain took their own lives. Their suicides happened around the same time that …

Once again, hard facts support the claim that the planet is getting warmer. According to a new report, published in the scientific journal Nature, Antarctica is losing ice so fast that by the end of this century, the sea level could rise as much as 16 centimeters. This may not …

Lions and tigers and bears are increasingly becoming night owls because of us, a new study says. Scientists have long known that human activity disrupts nature. Besides becoming more vigilant and reducing time spent looking for food, many mammals may travel to remote areas or move around less to avoid …

The beautiful, all-you-can-eat sushi platter you shared with friends last week might have included a special ingredient: plastic. Microplastics — the remnants of plastic bags, takeout containers and straws that almost-but-not-quite disintegrate in the oceans — are found in 3 out of 4 fish, such as squid, cuttlefish and swordfish …

Millions of high school students are done. So done. In flowing gowns and square caps, more than 3 million will walk across a stage this month and be handed a diploma, what they’ve been working toward for 12 years. Latavea Cole, a graduating senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School …

Millions of high school students are done. So done. In flowing gowns and square caps, more than 3 million will walk across a stage this month and be handed a diploma, what they’ve been working toward for 12 years. Latavea Cole, a graduating senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School …

Health experts are dispatching an experimental vaccine in areas of The Democratic Republic of the Congo that are considered ground zero in the fight against Ebola. Their hope is to try to combat the outbreak from the onset. The crucial test is providing hope, in times of uncertainty. VOA’s Julie …

The head of UNAIDS says testing for the HIV virus is critical in reaching the goal of eliminating the virus by 2030. But the U.N. official tells VOA the effort is hampered in many countries by social taboos and stigma attached to AIDS and other HIV-related diseases. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke …

Two promising new ways to prevent cholera are on the horizon. One is an entirely new kind of vaccine. The other is as simple as a cup of yogurt. Both may offer fast, cheap protection from explosive outbreaks of a disease that claims tens of thousands of lives each year. …

The head of UNAIDS says the global community is at a “defining moment” in the effort to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.   “This midpoint is important for us to reflect on what was not working,” Michel Sidibe told VOA, noting this year marks the halfway point to agreed …

Antarctica is melting at an astonishing pace, losing three trillion tons of ice since 1992, a global team of scientists has concluded in a new assessment of the effects of global warming on Earth’s southernmost continent. The scientists said that between 1992 and 2011, Antarctica lost 76 billion (metric) tons …

From fears that eating chicken wings makes it hard to find a husband to beliefs that pineapple jeopardizes fertility, a host of food taboos are fueling malnutrition among Indonesian girls, experts said as they launched an adolescent health drive. Nutritionists said girls ate very little protein, vegetables or fruit, preferring …

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday cautioned against declaring victory too early in Congo’s Ebola epidemic, despite encouraging signs that it may be brought under control. “The outbreak is stabilizing, but still the outbreak is not over,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists on a …

With frustration mounting over lawmakers’ inaction on gun control, the American Medical Association on Tuesday pressed for a ban on assault weapons and came out against arming teachers as a way to fight what it calls a public health crisis. At its annual policymaking meeting, the nation’s largest physicians group …

The most widely used antimalarial therapy may not fully treat some children and pregnant women, according to a new study. These patients’ bloodstreams contained lower concentrations of one active ingredient compared to adults who aren’t pregnant. The research may explain why standard doses of artemether-lumefantrine combination therapy (ACT) sometimes fail …

The recent suicides of high-profile celebrities lead experts to worry that young people will copy the act of taking their own lives. “They think, ‘Well, OK, that person hung themselves from a banister using 10-foot rope,’ then that might be something that they want to emulate,” said Blaise Aguirre, M.D., …

Irene Mboyo Mola spent 11 days caring for her husband as he died of Ebola in a hospital where she said nurses were too scared to get close. She helped him to the bathroom, picked up his feverish body when he lost his balance, and reinserted an IV that fell …

Tropical Storm Bud intensified late Sunday afternoon into a Category 1 hurricane some 254 miles (410 km) west of the Pacific coast of Mexico, the country’s weather service said. With maximum sustained winds of 75 miles (121 km) per hour and gusts of 93 miles (150 km) per hour, Bud …

After years of research and 400 million dollars from investors, Impossible Foods has produced the hottest new item on the vegan market, meat-free burgers. The goal of the California-based start-up is to make an all-natural organic product that could deliver the pleasure people get from eating meat, but with no …

The University of Hawaii Cancer Center is the leader in a groundbreaking national study that found that early-stage breast cancer patients with the most common form of the disease do not benefit from chemotherapy. The center helped develop the largest breast cancer study, enrolling 172 Hawaii patients onto the TailorX …

A spike in suicide rates in the United States has cast fresh light on the need for more effective treatments for major depression, with researchers saying it is a tricky development area that has largely been abandoned by big pharmaceutical companies. U.S. health authorities said this week that there had been a sharp rise …

Health officials say a salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon has sickened 60 people in five Midwestern states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Caito Foods LLC on Friday recalled pre-cut watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe and fruit medleys containing at least one of those melons that were produced …