NASA’s latest nail-biting drama was far from orbit as the Senate narrowly confirmed President Donald Trump’s choice of a tea party congressman to run the space agency in an unprecedented party-line vote. In a 50-49 vote Thursday, Oklahoma Representative James Bridenstine, a Navy Reserve pilot, was confirmed as NASA’s 13th …

The World Health Organization says the first-ever vaccine for dengue needs to be dealt with in “a much safer way,” meaning that the shot should mostly be given to people who have previously been infected with the disease. In November, the vaccine’s manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, said people who had never …

The most decorated Olympian of all time, swimmer Michael Phelps no longer competes, but he’s never far from water. As Earth Day celebrations get underway, Phelps talks to VOA News about water conservation and what he does at home to preserve the precious resource. Tina Trinh reports. …

Friday is April 20, or 4/20. That’s the numerical code for marijuana’s high holiday, a celebration and homage to pot’s enduring and universal slang for smoking.   Festivities are planned worldwide, culminating with a synchronized smoke at 4:20 p.m. local time.   How the marijuana-loving world came to mark the …

After 16 years of steady decline, malaria cases are on the rise again globally, and experts warn that unless efforts to tackle the disease are stepped up, the gains could be lost. Henry Ridgwell reports from a malaria summit Wednesday in London, where delegates called for a boost in funding …

After 16 years of steady decline, malaria cases are on the rise again globally, and experts warn that unless efforts to tackle the disease are stepped up, the gains could be lost. Henry Ridgwell reports from a malaria summit Wednesday in London, where delegates called for a boost in funding …

A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Wednesday carrying SpaceX’s first high-priority science mission for NASA, a planet-hunting space telescope whose launch had been delayed for two days by a rocket-guidance glitch. The Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:51 p.m. EDT, starting the clock …

Britain plans to ban the sale of plastic straws and other single-use products and is pressing Commonwealth allies to also take action to tackle marine waste, the office of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May said. It said drink stirrers and cotton buds would also be banned under the plans. May …

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has invested billions of dollars into tackling malaria. It has paid off. Deaths from the disease fell by more than 60 percent between 2000 and 2015, meaning 7 million lives were saved. In 2016, however, that trend was reversed. There were more than 216 million reported …

Malawi, which has one of the highest rates of the deadly HIV/AIDS infections, is on course to eradicate the virus, Jay Levy who co-discovered the AIDS virus 35 years ago said. Most of the AIDS cases globally are in poorer countries, where access to testing, prevention and treatment is limited. …

Since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to the world’s first robotic surgical system, almost 4,000 of these sophisticated machines have been deployed in operating suites around the world. Recognizing that the proficiency of the surgeons who use them can be subjective, a group of surgeons …

Renewed action and boosted funding to fight malaria could prevent 350 million cases of the disease in the next five years and save 650,000 lives across commonwealth countries, health experts said Wednesday. Seeking to reignite efforts to wipe out the deadly mosquito-borne disease, philanthropists, business leaders and ministers from donor …

The U.S. government on Tuesday proposed tightening rules governing the amount of prescription opioid painkillers that drugmakers can manufacture in a given year, in hopes of reining in the deadly opioid epidemic. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Drug Enforcement Administration’s proposed changes to regulations covering addictive-drug manufacturing quotas. The plan …

Wildlife managers in the American Southwest say a once-rare bat important to the pollination of plants used to produce tequila has made a comeback and is being removed from the U.S. endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s announcement Tuesday made the lesser long-nosed bat, which ranges from …

In a medical first, a French surgeon says he has performed a second face transplant on the same patient — who is now doing well and even spent a recent weekend in Brittany. Dr. Laurent Lantieri of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris first transplanted a new face onto Jerome …

Fragments of a meteorite that fell to Earth about a decade ago provide compelling evidence of a lost planet that once roamed our solar system, according to a study published Tuesday. Researchers from Switzerland, France and Germany examined diamonds found inside the Almahata Sitta meteorite and concluded they were most …

More than 100 parts for U.S. space agency NASA’s deep-space capsule Orion will be made by 3-D printers, using technology that experts say will eventually become key to efforts to send humans to Mars. U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, 3-D printing specialist Stratasys, and engineering firm PADT have developed the …

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would fine opioid drug manufacturers for deceptive marketing and implement the harshest penalties yet on drugmakers found responsible for contributing to the drug epidemic. Sanders, an independent who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, said the bill …

The European Union’s top court has ruled that Poland violated environmental laws with its massive logging of trees in one of Europe’s last pristine forests. The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice said that, in increasing logging in the Bialowieza Forest, Poland failed to fulfil its obligations to …

Automated health care will soon be just steps away for customers in shopping malls and other public spaces. Faith Lapidus reports the new technology developed by a firm in Dubai aims to make it easier and more convenient for people to get health check-ups. …

A child’s health can be compromised not only by a mother who smokes or drinks during pregnancy, but by the obesity and poor diet of both parents well before the act of procreation, researchers said Tuesday. What a mother and father eat, and whether they are seriously overweight, in other …

An 11th-hour technical glitch prompted SpaceX to postpone its planned launch on Monday of a new NASA space telescope designed to detect worlds beyond our solar system, delaying for at least 48 hours a quest to expand astronomers’ known inventory of so-called exoplanets. SpaceX halted the countdown a little more …

Global warming is screwing up nature’s intricately timed dinner hour, often making hungry critters and those on the menu show up at much different times, a new study shows. Timing is everything in nature. Bees have to be around and flowers have to bloom at the same time for pollination …

For the first time, a treatment that boosts the immune system greatly improved survival in people newly diagnosed with the most common form of lung cancer. It’s the biggest win so far for immunotherapy, which has had much of its success until now in less common cancers.  In the study, …

Scientists in Britain and the United States say they have engineered a plastic-eating enzyme that could help in the fight against pollution. The enzyme is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate, or PET — a form of plastic patented in the 1940s and now used in millions of tons of plastic …