While President Donald Trump has thrust transgender people back into the conflict between conservative and liberal values in the United States, geneticists are quietly working on a major research effort to unlock the secrets of gender identity. A consortium of five research institutions in Europe and the United States, including …

Life-size 3D models, used by Hollywood for creating amazing visual effects, can also serve as props for surgeons practicing complicated operations. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland, say even seasoned brain surgeons can benefit from the realistic training. …

When it rains in Emusala village, a person sick with a fever can find it hard to get to the nearest health center, which requires a trip along the slippery footpaths that lead to the nearest main road some 10km (6 miles) away, in the heart of Western Kenya’s Kakamega …

Scientists searching for everything from oil and gas to copper and gold are adopting techniques used by companies such as Netflix or Amazon to sift through vast amounts of data, a study showed Tuesday. The method has already helped to discover 10 carbon-bearing minerals and could be widely applied to …

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has called an emergency meeting this Wednesday in South Africa of all countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) following an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Aid workers are concerned what this could mean for food security in the region, where …

The last time a total solar eclipse blacked out the sun in Oregon nearly 40 years ago, Gene Brick was working in a timber mill that refused to shut down for the spectacle.      The World War II veteran and amateur astronomer was devastated when his friends raved about …

Online searches about suicide and suicide methods spiked in the weeks following the release of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, a show that dramatizes the suicide of a teenage girl, according to a U.S. study released Monday. Google searches about suicide were 19 percent higher than average in the 19 days …

A proposed new law that would require carmakers to build alarms for back seats is being pushed by child advocates who say it will prevent kids from dying in hot cars. The law also would streamline the criminal process against caregivers who cause the deaths – cases that can be …

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is reintroducing a living fossil into its waterways. The alligator gar is a fish so old, it’s thought to have evolved during the Early Cretaceous period, more than a 100 million years ago. Alligator gar are the second largest freshwater fish in North America. …

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is reintroducing a living fossil into its waterways. The alligator gar is a fish so old, it’s thought to have evolved during the Early Cretaceous period, over a hundred million years ago. Erika Celeste reports from Kaskaskia River State Fish and Wildlife Area. …

According to a recent study, an examination of the brains of 111 deceased players of professional American football showed that all but one of them had a degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. Scientists say even when it looks mild, a concussion can …

A bioresearch and manufacturing institute that hopes to develop transplant tissues and organs for injured American soldiers and other patients has opened in New Hampshire. The Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, which opened Friday in Manchester, will be led by Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway personal transporter, an all-terrain electric …

The U.S. government is proposing cutting the nicotine level in cigarettes for the first time in its history.   The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday it has directed the agency’s staff to develop new regulations to make cigarettes less addictive. Tobacco stocks fell Friday following the news.   …

A Soyuz space capsule successfully blasted off for the International Space Station on Friday, carrying an American astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut and an Italian astronaut. NASA’s Randy Bresnik, Russia’s Sergei Ryazansky and Italy’s Paolo Nespoli lifted off from the Russia-leased launch pad in Kazakhstan shortly after sunset at 21:41 p.m. …

A United Nations-led polio immunization campaign to stem an outbreak of this crippling disease is under way in Syria’s Deir Ezzor Governorate. The campaign, headed by the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund, started on July 22. The campaign got off to a good start. The World Health …

An estimated 47 million people around the world have dementia, a decline in memory or other thinking skills severe enough to interfere with daily life. The most common form of the condition is Alzheimer’s disease. Now, research shows the way you speak may indicate whether you are at risk of …

Jabulani Zilawe lost all 11 of his children to AIDS. Now he is the only one left to care for their orphans. “This has become my life — with my grandchildren. All their parents died. AIDS killed them. I had 11 children, six of them were girls who had moved …

Scientists have developed an experimental surgical glue inspired by the mucus secreted by slugs that could offer an alternative to sutures and staples for closing wounds. While some medical glues already exist, they often adhere weakly, are not particularly flexible and frequently cannot be used in very wet conditions. To …

Projected increases in rain from global warming could further choke U.S. waterways with fertilizer runoff that trigger dead zones and massive algae blooms, a new study said.   If greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, more and heavier rain will increase nitrogen flowing into lakes, rivers and bays by about 19 …

Scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University say they have successfully edited genes of human embryos in the first such attempt in the United States. Previously, similar experiments have been reported only by scientists in China. Engineering human genes in the embryo stage opens up the possibility of correcting …

On the eve of World Hepatitis Day, the World Health Organization is calling for stepped up action to eliminate Hepatitis B and C by 2030. It says the goal can be reached by scaling up diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the diseases, which can cause death from cirrhosis and liver …

Every second, millions of tons of various gases rise from the surface of the earth into the atmosphere. Many of them are man-made and harmful, contributing massively to pollution and consequently to global warming. The European Space Agency, ESA, is slowly building a network of satellites that will help scientists …

When astronaut John Glenn became the first man to set foot on the moon 48 years ago this month, the scene transfixed a small girl in Costa Rica watching on a neighbor’s TV. “I was 7 years old when I saw the Apollo landing. … I told Mami, ‘I want …

As the world’s AIDS experts meet at a conference this week in Paris, health workers in Cameroon still struggle to identify and treat HIV-positive mothers and babies. Myriam Anang lost her husband and three-month-old baby two years ago to HIV. Now, Anang works as a peer educator in a government-initiated …

Forty-eight years ago this month (July), U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. That image transfixed a little Costa Rican girl as she watched on a neighbor’s TV.  VOA Vero Balderas explains how that moon walk launched Sandra Cauffman’s journey to a leadership …