Health

In a ‘Key Milestone,’ Scientists Get a Clear Look at Huntington’s Disease Protein

Scientists announced that they have observed the structure of huntingtin, a large and essential protein in many animals’ bodies which, when produced by a mutated gene, causes Huntington’s disease in humans. Huntington’s disease is a heartbreaking disorder that causes degrading brain cells, leading to difficulties controlling movement and behavior, and eventually death. There’s no known…

Health Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Alcohol Plays a Much Bigger Role in Causing Dementia Than We Thought

It’s hardly a surprise that too much alcohol is bad for the body, including the brain. But a new study published Tuesday in The Lancet suggests that even doctors are underestimating its impact on our risk of developing dementia. The researchers looked at a nationwide, anonymous database of more than 30 million adult French hospital…

Health Ed Cara

Mark Zuckerberg Will Fund Scientists With ‘New Ideas’ to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, launched the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with the modest goal of curing all diseases before the end of the century. Now, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is setting its sights on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Over the next five years, it plans to hand out $2.5 million…

Social Media Kristen V. Brown

Florida State House Declares Porn Is a Health Risk, Assault Weapons Totally Fine Though

Legislators in Florida—where a gunman authorities later identified as Nikolas Cruz opened fire on the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida, killing at least 17 last week—have apparently decided that the threat they need to focus on right now is pornography. Per the Sun Sentinel, as surviving students from the…

Health Tom McKay

Common Chemicals Are a Way Bigger Source of Air Pollution Than We Thought

For years, the war against smog and bad air quality has been waged through regulations on tail pipes, refineries, and other obvious sources of pollution. Those regulations have targeted a host of volatile organic compounds and other gases that directly or indirectly cause air pollution, one of the biggest risks to human health. Compounds from…

Earth Science Brian Kahn

Doctors Find Symptoms of Brain Trauma in U.S. Staff in Cuba, But No Evidence of ‘Sonic Device’

The bizarre saga surrounding what officials have alleged was an attack on U.S. diplomatic staff in Cuba using a “covert sonic device” has continued to get weirder, with the first comprehensive medical study of the affected personnel revealing that they indeed suffered symptoms resembling the effects of traumatic brain injuries that doctors simply cannot explain.…

Health Tom McKay

Purdue Pharmaceuticals Says It Will Stop the Aggressive Opioid Marketing That Made It Billions

Purdue Pharmaceuticals, one of the companies which has made billions of dollars selling massive amounts of opioids across the country even as addiction rates and overdose deaths skyrocketed, has announced it will no longer be directly marketing the painkillers to U.S. doctors. Purdue, which the New Yorker dubbed an “Empire of Pain” in a 2017…

Health Tom McKay

The 2018 Winter Olympics Is Now Hosting A Norovirus Outbreak

The stomach flu has touched ground on the 2018 Winter Olympics, which begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on Thursday, and officials are pulling out the stops to keep it from derailing the games. According to CNN, Olympics organizers have reported 41 security guards afflicted by “a sudden onset of vomiting and diarrhea” over the weekend,…

Health Ed Cara

Report: UConn Dental Students, Staff Took Selfie With Severed Heads (Updated)

University of Connecticut dental school grad students and an orthodontics professor took a selfie “with two severed heads used for medical research at a training workshop at Yale University” in 2017, the Associated Press reported on Monday. According to the AP report, the students nabbed the selfies during the DePuy Synthes Future Leaders Workshop, “which…

Health Tom McKay

Super Bowl I, Security Snake Oil, and Killer Flu: The Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

What a week, what a week. As January faded into memory and February began, we saw the return of a (likely intoxicated) Ken Bone, Mark Zuckerberg claim he’s actually happy we’re using Facebook less, Apple continue to make a boatload of cash selling iPhones (though perhaps not as many as it would like), and we…

Tech News Andrew Couts

The Philippines Halts Mass Use of Dengue Fever Vaccine, Saying It May Be Linked to Three Deaths

On Friday, Filipino authorities tied at least three deaths to the 2016 deployment of Dengvaxia, the world’s first dengue fever vaccine, Reuters reported. Vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur admitted in November that the vaccine, Dengvaxia, might increase the odds of severe illness in inoculated children who had not previously been infected with the dengue virus. Over…

Health Tom McKay

Why the Flu Kills Young, Otherwise Healthy People

As one of the worst flu seasons in years continues to sicken people across the U.S., one of its most striking aspects are the untimely deaths it’s caused: A 21-year-old bodybuilder; a 12-year-old boy; a 40-year-old marathoner. Infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised people are always at higher risk of dying from the flu, but how…

Health Ed Cara

Flint’s New Registry Will Help Residents Get the Healthcare They Need

In 2014, residents in the predominantly black city of Flint, Michigan, were exposed to lead in their drinking water. Now, nearly four years later, a registry finally exists to help the state identify everyone that was exposed, and better provide them access to helpful resources. The idea is to monitor people’s continued exposure —not just…

Environmental Justice Yessenia Funes

Trump Administration May Face Lawsuit Over Refusal to Restrict Dangerous Pesticide Chlorpyrifos

If Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency does not implement restrictions on pesticides advocated in a recent National Marine Fisheries Services report, environmental activists and commercial fisheries hoping to preserve Pacific Northwest stocks of “salmon, sturgeon, orca and other endangered species” may file lawsuits, the Guardian reported on Sunday. The 3,700-page NMFS report concluded that a…

Health Tom McKay

There Are So Many Flu Victims, California Hospitals Are Setting Up Emergency Tents in Their Parking Lots

A flu strain called H3N2 has sent thousands to emergency rooms in California—so many that hospitals are erecting tents to accommodate the all the extra patients, reports the LA Times. Check out this picture from Fox 5 San Diego reporter Jamie Chambers: And this, from LA Times reporter Soumya Karlamangla: But it’s not just California…

Health Ryan F. Mandelbaum

The CDC Changes Topic of Nuclear Strike Preparedness Session to ‘Focus on Influenza’

The Center for Disease Control’s January 16th special session advising Americans on what to do in the event of a nuclear war will now be about what to do in the event of, uh, flu season. Per the New York Times, the CDC announced on Friday the upcoming event would be about a completely different…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay

White House Made 24-Year-Old Campaign Staffer Second in Command at Its Anti-Drug Office

When last we checked in on the Donald Trump’s response to the opioid crisis, the news was hardly encouraging: The closest thing to someone at the helm was wildly corrupt New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and extremely bad liar Kellyanne Conway. Things remain pretty bleak over there. The White House installed a 24-year-old St. John’s…

Health Tom McKay

Asthma Is an $80 Billion Drag on the US Economy

It’s no secret asthma is a problem in the United States. What might surprise some, though, is to hear how much it costs: $80 billion. Don’t expect it to go down under President Donald Trump, who doesn’t care much about air quality regulations. This is according to a study published in the Annals of the…

Environmental Justice Yessenia Funes

Microsoft Wants to Diagnose Disease By Building Massive Database of the Human Immune System

Imagine making a spreadsheet of every meal you’ve ever eaten, every hand you’ve ever shook, every bit of dust that’s ever gotten in your eye—and multiply it by about a million times. Then you begin to get a sense of the size of the data problem that is your body’s immune system. Through a new…

Health Kristen V. Brown

South Carolina Lawmakers Have Found a Reason to Bring Back the Electric Chair

South Carolina hasn’t killed anyone on death row in six years. Not because the state wouldn’t like to kill people, but simply because drug companies won’t sell them the lethal injection drugs to do it. In response, frustrated lawmakers in South Carolina held hearings today about bringing back the electric chair for when lethal injection…

Tech News Matt Novak

In a ‘Key Milestone,’ Scientists Get a Clear Look at Huntington’s Disease Protein

Alcohol Plays a Much Bigger Role in Causing Dementia Than We Thought

Mark Zuckerberg Will Fund Scientists With ‘New Ideas’ to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

Florida State House Declares Porn Is a Health Risk, Assault Weapons Totally Fine Though

Common Chemicals Are a Way Bigger Source of Air Pollution Than We Thought

Doctors Find Symptoms of Brain Trauma in U.S. Staff in Cuba, But No Evidence of ‘Sonic Device’

Purdue Pharmaceuticals Says It Will Stop the Aggressive Opioid Marketing That Made It Billions

The 2018 Winter Olympics Is Now Hosting A Norovirus Outbreak

Report: UConn Dental Students, Staff Took Selfie With Severed Heads (Updated)

Super Bowl I, Security Snake Oil, and Killer Flu: The Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

The Philippines Halts Mass Use of Dengue Fever Vaccine, Saying It May Be Linked to Three Deaths

Why the Flu Kills Young, Otherwise Healthy People

Flint’s New Registry Will Help Residents Get the Healthcare They Need

Trump Administration May Face Lawsuit Over Refusal to Restrict Dangerous Pesticide Chlorpyrifos

There Are So Many Flu Victims, California Hospitals Are Setting Up Emergency Tents in Their Parking Lots

The CDC Changes Topic of Nuclear Strike Preparedness Session to ‘Focus on Influenza’

White House Made 24-Year-Old Campaign Staffer Second in Command at Its Anti-Drug Office

Asthma Is an $80 Billion Drag on the US Economy

Microsoft Wants to Diagnose Disease By Building Massive Database of the Human Immune System

South Carolina Lawmakers Have Found a Reason to Bring Back the Electric Chair

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

2027 Is Shaping Up to Be a Great Year for Big Sci-Fi RPGs

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Ahead of the SpaceX IPO, xAI Has Now Shed All 11 of Its Non-Elon Musk Founders

Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

How to Watch the F1 Japanese GP 2026 on a Free Channel

Ranking 2016’s Superhero Debuts, 10 Years Later

Fourth Most Populous Country in the World Bans Most Social Media for Kids

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

Let us help find what you are looking for...