Oklahoma tornado fatalities included two infants, 10 children in all

Two of the 24 people known to have been killed in the tornado that pulverized a suburb of Oklahoma City on Monday were infants, the local medical examiner’s office announced Wednesday.Case Futrell, 4 months old, and mother Megan Futrell, 29, died of blunt-force trauma, according to an information sheet released by the Oklahoma City medical examiner’s office. A cousin told the Oklahoman newspa

Frog, toad and salamander populations plummeting, U.S. survey finds

Frogs, toads and salamanders continue to vanish from the American landscape at an alarming pace, with seven species — including Colorado’s boreal toad and Nevada’s yellow-legged frog — facing 50 percent drops in their numbers within seven years if the current rate of decline continues, according to new government research. Read full article >>

Senate panel approves tighter oversight of compounding pharmacies, but bill is under fire

Public health and consumer advocacy groups are attacking Senate legislation designed to tighten oversight of specialized pharmacies such as the one at the center of this past fall’s deadly meningitis outbreak,saying it does not adequately address health risks. Read full article >>

Environmental Defense Fund scolded by other green organizations on ‘fracking’

In an unusually public dispute, about 70 environmental groups Wednesday scolded one of their larger brethren, the Environmental Defense Fund(EDF), for joining with a group of energy companies that support hydraulic fracturing. Read full article >>

Insurers: Tornadoes have done record damage in last five years

This hadn’t been a bad tornado year until Monday. In fact, it had been remarkably quiet, with 274 tornadoes reported around the United States as of Monday, much lower than the average, which would be 491 through May 20. Read full article >>

Children survive Oklahoma tornado in elementary school bathroom

It was the regular tornado drill, the one Alexander Ghassimi and other children in Moore, Okla., learn in school: Get to an interior hallway, get down, cover up. Then a teacher who had been watching the progress of Monday’s storm outside Plaza Towers Elementary School came tearing down the hall, yelling to move as many children as possible into the girls’ bathroom, and 11-year-old Alexander knew

Huge tornado levels Oklahoma City suburb, killing scores

A massive tornado up to a mile wide chewed through Moore, Okla., a suburb of Oklahoma City, on Monday afternoon, grinding up entire neighborhoods and obliterating an elementary school where students who had huddled in a hallway with their teachers were buried in rubble. Read full article >>

Medical Mysteries: A clue to a girl’s painful ailment goes long overlooked

‘Oh my God,” Leigh Partridge remembers thinking, her mind reeling as she tried to contemplate the unimaginable. “This cannot be happening again.”Doctors in the emergency room of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) had just told Partridge that a mass in the abdomen of her 16-year-old daughter might be cancer. Further testing would be required. Read full article >>

A sudden burst of black spots in my eye turned out to be a threat to my sight

It started late on a Thursday afternoon last May, when I noticed a wispy dark shadow in the lower left corner of my right eye. At first, I didn’t worry about it. But being 62 at the time — a baby boomer — I should have. Read full article >>

The ancient Maya meet the modern Internet

Researchers began decoding the glyphic language of the ancient Maya long ago, but the Internet is helping them finish the job and write the history of this enigmatic Mesoamerican civilization.For centuries, scholars understood little about Maya script beyond its elegant astronomical calculations and calendar. The Maya had dominated much of Central America and southern Mexico for 1,000 years b

Allergy symptoms can be triggered by infections, even by changes in the weather

April showers bring May flowers — and for many people, congestion, sneezing and itchy, runny eyes. But sometimes those symptoms, even in the spring, don’t stem from plant and tree pollen but from dust mites and pet dander. And at least a third of people who think they have allergies actually have a condition known as nonallergic rhinitis, a reaction that can be triggered by an infection, a sensi

Angry outbursts are linked to increased risk of heart attack

Bottling up emotions is thought to harm both mind and body, but a new studysuggests that doing the opposite may be no better.In a study of nearly 4,000 heart attack patients, those who recalled having flown into a rage during the previous year were more than twice as likely to have had their heart attack within two hours of that episode, compared to other times during the year. Read full art

Disrupted ‘brain clock’ is linked to depression in new study

Disrupted sleep is such a common symptom of depression that some of the first things doctors look for in diagnosing depression are insomnia and excessive sleeping. Now, scientists have observed for the first time a dysfunctional body clock in the brains of depressed people. Read full article >>

New study questions the value of bed rest in preventing premature birth

New research is raising fresh concern that an age-old treatment for troubled pregnancies — bed rest — doesn’t seem to prevent premature birth and might even worsen that risk.Doctors have known for years that there’s no good evidence that bed rest offers any benefit for certain pregnancy complications, and it can cause side effects in the mother, not to mention emotional and financial strain.

TV ads for drugs can raise awareness but may not be right for you

I learned last week about two prescription drugs I’d never heard of before — not from my doctor, but from TV commercials. Axiron is applied like deodorant — under your arm. Well, under the arm of a man who has low testosterone and has been prescribed the product by a doctor. “It’s a new day,” the ad says. Read full article >>

An alternative to high-deductible health plans may not stand under health law

There is no free lunch. As more people buy high-deductible health plans, they’re discovering that while premiums for such plans are more affordable, the trade-off can be high out-of-pocket costs before coverage kicks in. Read full article >>

Hiccups, evolution and outer space will be discussed at upcoming events

Ever wonder why people hiccup? Want to engage in a debate about the intersection of science and religion? Or learn more about the X-ray telescope orbiting Earth? A host of upcoming events are meant for science buffs like you. Read full article >>

Allergy-friendly cookbook for kids from Washington chocolate makers

To be a “kid in a candy store” epitomizes the ultimate dream come true, one that only gets better when the shop is owned by your mom and aunt. Read full article >>

Study links popular painkillers to sexual dysfunction in men

THE QUESTION Men being treated for chronic pain frequently experience sexual dysfunction. Might a contributing factor be the powerful drugs often prescribed to quell their pain? THIS STUDY analyzed data on 11,327 men (average age, 49) with chronic back pain. More than half of them were taking an opioid painkiller, and 909 were taking a medication for erectile dysfunction or low testosterone.

Preventive screenings can save lives

As the chief medical officer of HealthFair, I am writing to express my disagreement with several statements featured in your May 14 article “Hospitals, health-test firms promote screenings that many don’t need.” Read full article >>

Hurricane season comes with plan for better forecast

With hurricane season less than two weeks away and a very active season predicted by meteorologists, thoughts are on what happened last year, when a tropical cyclone named Sandy raced north from the Caribbean, hung a sharp left off the Mid-Atlantic coast and smashed into New Jersey and New York, killing 147 people, flooding some of the most valuable real estate in the United States and causing t

Bug-phobic dread the looming swarm of Brood II cicadas

The night started with one tiny click near the bedroom window.Then came another, and another, until a great oak beside Lori Milani’s South Arlington apartment was alive with an almost deafening roar of cicadas. Read full article >>

Increase in doctors’ pay for Medicaid services off to a slow start

The Obama administration’s strategy of enticing more ­primary-care doctors to treat the poor by raising Medicaid reimbursement rates is off to a slow start.Only a handful of states, including Maryland, have begun paying doctors at the higher rates, which average a 73 percent increase nationally. That’s because the administration did not issue the rules until November, and state officials say

Psychiatry’s revamped DSM guidebook fuels debate

For ADHD, the definition is being broadened, meaning the disorder could be diagnosed in more children. In the case of autism, the opposite is true.The new criteria are among the changes that will be released with the publication this weekend of the long-awaited guidebook that psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians use to diagnose mental disorders. It’s the first major update in near

Senate committee approves Obama’s nomination of Gina McCarthy to head EPA

President Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency was quickly approved by a Senate committee Thursday when Republicans abandoned their boycott of a vote on the career environmental administrator, after what Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) described as “significant steps forward” on transparency issues important to the GOP. Read full article >>

Oregon scientists get stem cells from cloned human embryos

A team of researchers said Wednesday that it had produced embryonic stem cells — a possible source of disease-fighting spare parts — from a cloned human embryo.Scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University accomplished in humans what has been done over the past 15 years in sheep, mice, cattle and several other species. The achievement is likely to, at least temporarily, reawaken worr

NASA’s Kepler space telescope malfunction may end hunt for planets

The Kepler Space Telescope, the celebrated discoverer of worlds around distant stars, may have found its last planet. NASA announced Wednesday that the telescope, which to date has cost $600 million to build and operate, has lost the ability to point accurately. Read full article >>

World’s fish have been moving to cooler waters for decades, study finds

Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday.The research, published in the journal Nature, provides more evidence of a rapidly warming planet and has broad repercussions for fish harvests around the globe. Read full article >>

Boston Marathon fund releases compensation formula for bombing victims

Everyone killed or injured in last month’s Boston Marathon bombings will receive some compensation from the $30 million in donations pledged for victims so far, according to a formula released Wednesday morning by the administrator of the One Fund Boston. Read full article >>

Deal spares abortion doctor death penalty

A day afterhis convictionfor the murders of three babies at his West Philadelphia clinic, abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Tuesday agreed not to appeal the verdict in exchange for being spared the death penalty. Read full article >>