Gesturing towards the White House, home to President Donald Trump who has called himself “a very stable genius,” Isaac Newton begged to differ. “Knowing many geniuses, and being one myself, I would venture to say that was rather a boastful claim on his part,” said “Newton,” actually Dean Howarth, a …

Auntie Caterina is a regular taxi driver, who offers free rides to cancer patients in the Italian city of Florence. She inherited the taxi when her partner died of cancer 17 years ago and says this is a way to honor his legacy. To show gratitude and support of the …

The search for new worlds outside our solar system will enter a new phase (April 16), when NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, takes off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working with NASA on the mission. Faith Lapidus reports. …

Scientists will leave their labs and march on Washington and more than 200 other cities around the world Saturday, protesting government policies on issues from climate change to gun violence that they say ignore scientific evidence. It comes a year after the first March for Science, three months into the …

Nonprofit international organization for public competitions XPRIZE has announced 10 finalists in its race to develop new technologies to lower carbon-dioxide emissions. Each team will get an additional incentive of $5 million to scale up their ideas and present them for the top prize of $20 million. VOA’s George Putic …

Researchers say the love youngsters have for wildlife may be clouding the public’s mind about how endangered those creatures are. The study in the journal PLOS Biology lists what the authors say are the world’s 10 most charismatic animals: tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, pandas, cheetahs, polar bears, gray wolves …

The World Health Organization (WHO) says breastfeeding all babies for the first two years would save the lives of more than 820,000 children under the age of five every year. The WHO is issuing a new 10-step guide aimed at promoting breastfeeding in health facilities around the world. The World …

The opioid crisis leaves no community in the U.S. untouched. It’s nationwide, but it hits small towns and rural states particularly hard.  In tiny Bellevue, Ohio, population 8,000, Koriann Evans had just gotten fentanyl from her dealer. Fentanyl is a drug dozens of times more powerful than heroin, and Evans …

The opioid crisis leaves no community in the U.S. untouched. It’s become a nationwide epidemic, but it’s hitting small towns and rural states especially hard. VOA’s Carol Pearson looks at the scope of the problem and what some states are doing to tackle the crisis. …

Government and other scientists are proposing a new way to define Alzheimer’s disease basing it on biological signs, such as brain changes, rather than memory loss and other symptoms of dementia that are used today. The move is aimed at improving research, by using more objective criteria like brain scans …

Landfills around the world are getting overloaded with waste, much of it hazardous and slow to decompose. As it becomes increasingly difficult to find new places for discarded unwanted items, people around the world are looking for ways to re-use as much stuff as possible before throwing it away. Designers …

A jawbone fossil found on a rocky English beach belongs to one of the biggest marine animals on record, a type of seagoing reptile called an ichthyosaur that scientists estimated at up to 85 feet (26 meters) long – approaching the size of a blue whale. Scientists said on Monday …

A fossil finger bone dating back about 90,000 years that was unearthed in Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert is pointing to what scientists are calling a new understanding of how our species came out of Africa en route to colonizing the world. Researchers said on Monday the middle bone of an …

Pakistan launched a nationwide polio vaccination drive this week to try to reach 38.7 million children and eradicate the paralyzing and potentially deadly virus in one of the last countries where it is endemic. Nearly 260,000 volunteers and workers fanned out across Pakistan in an effort to vaccinate every child …

An experimental smartphone application could monitor changes in Parkinson’s disease symptoms throughout the day, sending data to doctors to help them treat patients, U.S. researchers say. “Like diabetes, Parkinson’s has variability and symptom fluctuations, which can also vary the treatment. We can’t measure these fluctuations at home, and you can …

The grain that feeds half the world may have taken a big leap forward. Scientists report the biggest improvements in rice productivity in decades. If the results hold up in further tests, it could greatly increase harvests of a critical staple crop at a time when global population growing rapidly. …

Obesity rates among children in Asia-Pacific are rising at a rapid rate, and more action is needed to encourage healthier lifestyles and ease pressure on fledgling healthcare systems, researchers said. The number of overweight children under five rose 38 percent between 2000 and 2016 in the region, and the problem …

Spanish researchers have developed a technique to quickly remedy acute psychosocial stress, described as a short-term intense stress that occurs during social or interpersonal relationships caused by a verbal argument. The treatment involves blue, light-emitting diodes. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more. …

Scientists in Antarctica have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets. Researchers at Germany’s Neumayer Station III say they’ve picked 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds) of salad greens, 18 cucumbers and …

Almost half of the Australian military personnel who’ve left the defense force in the past five years have some sort of mental disorder, according to a new study.   The Australian government says it is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken in Australia of the effect of military service on the …

April 7 marks the 70th anniversary of the World Health Organization. It also marks World Health Day. In the past seven decades much has been accomplished, but much still needs to be done. The World Health Organization has spearheaded efforts to free the world of killer diseases like smallpox. It …

April 7 marks the 70th anniversary of the World Health Organization. It also marks World Health Day. VOA’s Carol Pearson looks at what’s been accomplished over the past seven decades and what still needs to be done. …

Millions of people worldwide face financial ruin; their assets wiped out because of a catastrophic illness or accident that saddles them with staggeringly high health bills they are unable to pay. This nightmare scenario rarely, if ever, occurs in countries that have universal health coverage. Such systems insulate people from …

The science behind the grain that feeds half the world may have taken a big leap forward.  Scientists are reporting the biggest improvements in rice productivity in decades. If the results hold up in further tests, it could greatly increase supplies of a critical food staple at a time when …

Humanitarian groups in South Korea are using the ocean current to send needed food and information from the outside world into impoverished regions of North Korea.  On Ganghwa Island in the Yellow Sea, located just south of the inter-Korean border, a group of North Korean defectors and volunteers with humanitarian …