Many women with a common and aggressive form of breast cancer that is treated with Herceptin can get by with six months of the drug instead of the usual 12, greatly reducing the risk of heart damage it sometimes can cause, a study suggests.   It’s good news, but it …

Patients suffering from opioid addiction may soon be given the first non-opioid drug to help them handle withdrawal symptoms.  The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved use of the drug Lucemyra, saying it gives doctors a new option for treating the side effects of withdrawal. “We know that the …

Something strange is happening with a now-banned chemical that eats away at Earth’s protective ozone layer: Scientists say there’s more of it — not less — going into the atmosphere and they don’t know where it is coming from. When a hole in the ozone formed over Antarctica, countries around …

The first batch of 4,000 experimental Ebola vaccines to combat an outbreak suspected of killing 23 people arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa on Wednesday. The Health Ministry said vaccinations would start at the weekend, the first time the vaccine would come into use since it was developed two years ago. …

NASA astronauts took a spacewalk Wednesday to shuffle around a couple of space station pumps. Popping out early, Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold quickly began rearranging the International Space Station’s external cooling system by swapping the positions of two spare ammonia pumps. NASA wants the best spare in the best …

Kenya’s government is pushing ahead with a plan to hire 100 Cuban doctors despite opposition from a doctors’ union that says the money could be used to employ local physicians instead. President Uhuru Kenyatta agreed the deal last year and the plan was accelerated after his state visit to Cuba …

A new global health plan is being rolled out by the World Health Organization, along with a health initiative called Resolve to Save Lives. The goal is to prevent half a million people a year from dying of heart disease. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more. …

A koala hospital and new wildlife reserves are the focus of one of Australia’s boldest plans to protect the vulnerable marsupial. Almost 25,000 hectares of state forest will be set aside for koalas in New South Wales state, which will also set up a new clinic north of Sydney to …

Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York discovered that the brains of songbirds use a similar process as humans do when learning to make sounds. And, as a result, VOA’s Deborah Block reports, the research could lead to treatments for people with speech impediments. …

Aardvarks are not the most attractive animals. They have rabbitlike ears, a kangaroo tail and a nose like a pig. But they are mammals, and that means they feed their babies milk. At the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio, an aardvark mother is contributing to the largest collection of exotic animal …

On Yaji Mountain in southern China, they are checking in the sows a thousand head per floor in high-rise “hog hotels.” Privately owned agricultural company Guangxi Yangxiang Co Ltd is running two seven-floor sow breeding operations, and is putting up four more, including one with as many as 13 floors …

Before taking office, President Donald Trump railed against the pharmaceutical industry and accused it of “getting away with murder.” The populist rhetoric appears to be giving way to a more nuanced strategy focused on making the pharmaceutical market more open and competitive, with the aim of lowering costs for consumers. …

The World Health Organization said Friday it is preparing for “the worst case scenario” for an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. WHO said Thursday that between April 4 and May 5, twenty-seven cases of fever with hemorrhagic signs, including 17 deaths, were reported in the DRC’s Bikoro …

Two weeks of climate talks organized by the United Nations ended Thursday as countries failed to resolve differences about implementing the Paris climate accord. The negotiations will resume in Bangkok in September, where an extra week’s meeting has now been scheduled. The pact’s 197 signatories have set a December deadline …

Young men who smoke are more likely to have a stroke before age 50 than their peers who avoid tobacco, a small study suggests. Smoking has long been linked to an increased risk of stroke in older adults, but research to date examining this connection in younger adults has mainly …

There’s a budding industry that’s trying to solve the problem of the limp lettuce and tasteless tomatoes in America’s supermarkets. It’s full of technologists who grow crops in buildings instead of outdoors, short-cutting the need to prematurely harvest produce for a bumpy ride often thousands of miles to consumers in …

The Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon never found the Fountain of Youth, a magical water source supposedly capable of reversing the aging process. But scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, are working to extend human life span and delay the onset of multiple age-related diseases and disabilities. VOA …

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to contain a new Ebola outbreak announced this week. At least two people are confirmed to have died of Ebola this month in a remote village of northwest DRC, very close to the border of the smaller, neighboring Republic of …

The eruption of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano could intensify in the coming weeks, possibly spraying boulders, rocks and ash for miles around, the U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday. Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted last week. Lava flows from fissures on its eastern flank have destroyed at least …

The 104-year-old scientist who has traveled to Switzerland to end his life hopes that his highly publicized move will change the way people think of euthanasia.  Australian ecologist David Goodall is scheduled to die Thursday at an end-of-life clinic in Basel. Goodall does not have a terminal illness but says …

Medical teams from the World Health Organization arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo to combat a new Ebola virus outbreak, as government officials in the region put plans in place to contain the outbreak. The World Health Organization announced Tuesday that DRC is suffering a new outbreak in its …

A team of veterinarians has again traveled to southern Malawi to vaccinate thousands of dogs as part of a global effort by the British charity, Mission Rabies, to eradicate the deadly virus by 2030. Malawi has in the past reported elevated numbers of child deaths from rabies, but now three …

A 104-year-old British-born Australian scientist who is planning to kill himself on Thursday says he doesn’t think the drugs used for assisted suicide should be available to just anyone, but that doctors should be able to prescribe them. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press just two days before …

Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed two cases of Ebola in the northwestern town of Bikoro and at least 10 more cases are suspected, the head of the national institute for biological research, Jean Jack Muyembe, said on Tuesday. A source at the Ministry of Health also said two cases …

As the pre-monsoon summer heat takes hold in New Delhi, two things are as inevitable as 40-degree-Celsius days: power cuts and air pollution from the diesel generators that then kick in. But a team of Indian engineers has figured out away to bring some good from choking generator exhaust: They …