Medicine

The Truth About Truvada: Can One Pill Really Protect You From HIV?

It sounds too good to be real: You take one pill every day, and your risk of contracting HIV is reduced upwards of 90 percent. But the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) program is an actual thing, which the CDC and the WHO have been recommending since last spring. Is daily Truvada as effective as it sounds,…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders and Levi Gadye Feb 3

How We’ll Finally Put An End To Organ Donation Shortages

The waiting list for organ transplants is growing at an alarming rate while the number of potential organ donors has failed to keep pace. Encouragingly, scientists are working several high-tech solutions in the field of regenerative medicine. We spoke to the experts to learn how organ shortages will soon become a thing of the past.…

io9 George Dvorsky Feb 2

These Cancer-Deformed Skeletons Are Inspiring the Design of a Building

Bone cancer can cause the human body to mutate in strange and dramatic ways. These images are an artistic interpretation of how a skeleton can change over time when affected by the disease—and they form the basis of the design of a new building. Created by Irene Cheng from University of Lincoln, UK, the project…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Feb 2

Obama’s Precision Medicine Plan Sounds Great—Unless It’s an IT Nightmare

After teasing a “Precision Medicine Initiative” in his State of the Union address, President Obama today released the details of his $215 million plan: A massive database containing the genetic profiles and health records of at least a million volunteers. Genetics sequencing! Big data! These all sound like good things! But there is potential problem:…

Tech News Sarah Zhang Jan 30

How Obama Will Spend The $215 Million Pledged To Precision Medicine

In an effort to make the current “one-size-fits-all” approach to medicine a thing of the past, the Obama administration has unveiled details about its Precision Medicine Initiative, an exciting and ambitious approach to personalizing the way we treat an assortment of diseases. Obama announced the initiative during his recent State of the Union address, saying…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 30

A Simple Flowchart to Help You Decide If You Should Vaccinate Your Child

Yes, you should. Yes. Very much so, yes. Yup. Indeed you should. Yes. Yep. Affirmative. Do it. Yes. Certainly. Uh-huh. Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. The full version’s below, by the way. The answer’s still yes. [Medium via Flowing Data]

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Jan 30

How Will the Ebola Epidemic End?

Upon his return from 6 weeks volunteering with the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership at a number of Ebola isolation facilities in Freetown, Tom Boyles considers the endgame of the Ebola epidemic. There are encouraging signs of an overall reduction in confirmed cases of Ebola in west Africa. The graphs below show the epidemic curves for…

Tech News Dr Tom Boyles - PLoS Blogs Jan 29

Chocolate was once considered a powerful cure-all drug

Feeling a bit under the weather? Have some chocolate: the best medical minds of the seventeenth century claim that it’ll cure just about anything. Seriously. According to public-domain documents from the 1600s, tea, coffee, chocolate and other hot beverages were once prescribed by doctors and pharmacists as potent (and potentially dangerous) drugs. When explorers first…

Tech News Sean Buckley Jan 28

How Research Scientists Get Free Illegal Drugs from the Government

On an obscure webpage that looks like it’s been barely updated in the last decade there’s a link to download a PDF with the unassuming name of “NDSP Catalog.” Click it and you’ll find pretty much every drug you can dream up: meth, cocaine, heroin, MDMA—nearly 800 compounds in all. Welcome to the scientist’s stash…

Tech News Sarah Zhang Jan 28

Terrifying Medical Instruments Found on Blackbeard’s Sunken Ship

The jolly good life of a pirate was not a jolly healthy one, what with the syphilis and scurvy and ship-raiding. Archeologists excavating Blackbeard’s flagship off the coast of North Carolina have unveiled their latest findings: a cache of medical instruments that include this rather horrifying urethral syringe. The Queen Anne’s Revenge sank near North…

Tech News Sarah Zhang Jan 27

This Is Why Glowing Jellyfish Proteins Have Revolutionized Medicine

In his new book Illuminating Disease, chemist Marc Zimmer explains how fluorescent proteins have changed science. Taken from glowing jellyfish, these proteins are now one of the most important tools in medicine, used in everything from brain mapping to disease research. And yes, that is a GMO glowing chicken. Marc Zimmer explains the book like…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz Jan 26

How The “Nocebo Effect” Can Trick Us Into Actually Dying

The “nocebo effect” is like the placebo effect, except in reverse. Whereas placebos trick people into feeling better, “nocebos” are things that make people feel worse, even though they don’t really exist. They can even kill people! Here’s how we can trick ourselves into dying, and how doctors may have found a cure. The Nocebo…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 26

The Onion Lampoons Vaccination Exemption

“Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I fully stand behind my choices as a mom, including my choice not to vaccinate my son, because it is my fundamental right as a parent to decide which eradicated diseases come roaring back.” This would be even funnier, if the whole anti-vaxxer mess weren’t so genuinely awful. http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-vaccinate-my-child-because-its-my-right-to,37839/…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jan 24

Can You Laugh Yourself To Death?

Zeuxis was a painter in the fifth century BC, who had been commissioned to paint a portrait of a wealthy patron as Aphrodite. When he saw the finished product, he supposedly laughed until he died. He was the first historical person to die laughing, but not the last. How dangerous can laughter really be? The…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 23

Do You Have A Geographic Tongue?

Here’s a very pretty version of a condition shared by two to three percent of the population. It causes patterns, often map-like patterns, on the tongue. Normally, the human tongue is covered with tiny papillae. These hairlike structures can look pink or white, and they look a bit like a film over the top of…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 23

How Does Mumps Cause Sterility in Adults?

Mumps is a disease that gives children fevers and big, comical hamster-faces. In adults, it can cause sterility. How does a childhood disease render someone infertile? Mumps is rarely dangerous, provided the sufferer gets it at the right age. In elementary-school-age children, it usually causes nothing more than a mild swelling of the face and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 21

How Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative Will Revolutionize Healthcare

During last night’s State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama called for a new initiative to fund precision medicine. Here’s what the proposed initiative entails and what it could mean to your health. Here’s what the President had to say last night: I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 21

How Fat the World Is, Visualized

Obesity has hit the United States hard in recent years—but how do American waistlines compare to those around the world? This map, put together from recent obesity data obtained by the CIA, shows that the U.S. is not alone. https://gizmodo.com/fat-maps-show-where-the-obesity-epidemic-has-hit-the-5934298 The map, put together by Clinic Compare, shows that the percentage of the population that…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Jan 21

This Ingestible Microbot Is Powered By Stomach Acid

There’s tiny revolution afoot in medicine, where micro- and nano-sized robots will someday cruise around inside our bodies, zeroing in on cancerous cells or repairing damaged but otherwise healthy ones. But before those ideas all become reality, those bots need a power source inside our bodies. That power source could be stomach acid. Scientists at…

Health Sarah Zhang Jan 19

The First Demonstration Of Self-Propelled Nanobots In A Living Animal

Researchers from the University of California have developed acid-fueled micro-machines capable of traveling and delivering cargo directly inside a living creature. It’s a breakthrough that’s expected to significantly advance the field of medical nano-robotics. Scientists have developed drug-delivering micro-machines before, but these systems were only tested under in vitro conditions (i.e., cell cultures outside the…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 19

The Truth About Truvada: Can One Pill Really Protect You From HIV?

How We’ll Finally Put An End To Organ Donation Shortages

These Cancer-Deformed Skeletons Are Inspiring the Design of a Building

Obama’s Precision Medicine Plan Sounds Great—Unless It’s an IT Nightmare

How Obama Will Spend The $215 Million Pledged To Precision Medicine

A Simple Flowchart to Help You Decide If You Should Vaccinate Your Child

How Will the Ebola Epidemic End?

Chocolate was once considered a powerful cure-all drug

How Research Scientists Get Free Illegal Drugs from the Government

Terrifying Medical Instruments Found on Blackbeard’s Sunken Ship

This Is Why Glowing Jellyfish Proteins Have Revolutionized Medicine

How The “Nocebo Effect” Can Trick Us Into Actually Dying

The Onion Lampoons Vaccination Exemption

Can You Laugh Yourself To Death?

Do You Have A Geographic Tongue?

How Does Mumps Cause Sterility in Adults?

How Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative Will Revolutionize Healthcare

How Fat the World Is, Visualized

This Ingestible Microbot Is Powered By Stomach Acid

The First Demonstration Of Self-Propelled Nanobots In A Living Animal

NASA Sets the Record Straight on That ‘Missing Chunk’ of Artemis 2’s Heat Shield

Beats Solo 4 Falls Back to All-Time Low, Now Emerging as a Cheaper Alternative to AirPods Max in Apple’s Headphone Lineup

‘The Meta Brand Is Not Something People Want to Put Anywhere Near Their Face,’ Says Snapchat CEO

DNA From 1,500-Year-Old Korean Mass Grave Exposes a Brutal Ancient Ritual

Intel May Have an Answer to AMD’s Most Powerful Gaming CPUs

Google Nest Cam (Wired, 3rd Gen) Hits Its Lowest Price as 2025 Gemini Indoor Security Cameras Go on Clearance

The New ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Trailer Is Ready for Revolution

Apple Watch Series 11 Briefly Returns to $100 Off, Matching Its Lowest Price on Amazon

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

This Loud-Ass Party Speaker Almost Got Me High AF

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

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

Medicine

The Truth About Truvada: Can One Pill Really Protect You From HIV?

How We’ll Finally Put An End To Organ Donation Shortages

These Cancer-Deformed Skeletons Are Inspiring the Design of a Building

Obama’s Precision Medicine Plan Sounds Great—Unless It’s an IT Nightmare

How Obama Will Spend The $215 Million Pledged To Precision Medicine

A Simple Flowchart to Help You Decide If You Should Vaccinate Your Child

How Will the Ebola Epidemic End?

​Chocolate was once considered a powerful cure-all drug

How Research Scientists Get Free Illegal Drugs from the Government

Terrifying Medical Instruments Found on Blackbeard’s Sunken Ship

This Is Why Glowing Jellyfish Proteins Have Revolutionized Medicine

How The “Nocebo Effect” Can Trick Us Into Actually Dying

The Onion Lampoons Vaccination Exemption

Can You Laugh Yourself To Death?

Do You Have A Geographic Tongue?

How Does Mumps Cause Sterility in Adults?

How Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative Will Revolutionize Healthcare

How Fat the World Is, Visualized

This Ingestible Microbot Is Powered By Stomach Acid

The First Demonstration Of Self-Propelled Nanobots In A Living Animal

NASA Sets the Record Straight on That ‘Missing Chunk’ of Artemis 2’s Heat Shield

Beats Solo 4 Falls Back to All-Time Low, Now Emerging as a Cheaper Alternative to AirPods Max in Apple’s Headphone Lineup

‘The Meta Brand Is Not Something People Want to Put Anywhere Near Their Face,’ Says Snapchat CEO

DNA From 1,500-Year-Old Korean Mass Grave Exposes a Brutal Ancient Ritual

Intel May Have an Answer to AMD’s Most Powerful Gaming CPUs

Google Nest Cam (Wired, 3rd Gen) Hits Its Lowest Price as 2025 Gemini Indoor Security Cameras Go on Clearance

The New ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Trailer Is Ready for Revolution

Apple Watch Series 11 Briefly Returns to $100 Off, Matching Its Lowest Price on Amazon

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

This Loud-Ass Party Speaker Almost Got Me High AF

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

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

Chocolate was once considered a powerful cure-all drug