Suit: Yoga in Schools Violates Church-State Rule

Yes, this lawsuit is taking place in Southern California. In Encinitas, to be exact, where parents have sued to stop the school district from having kids perform yoga as part of gym class, reports NBC San Diego . The parents are worried that yoga has too many religious connotations from the...

Now We Know How Long Neanderthals Breastfed

The American Academy of Pediatrics would have smiled on at least one aspect of Neanderthal child-rearing: Chemical analysis of a fossilized tooth suggests that Neanderthal moms breastfed exclusively for seven months, then breastfed while supplementing with food for another seven, reports Australia's ABC Science . After that, the little knuckledragger was...

Your Feet: Home to Lots of Fungus

If you always thought feet were kind of gross, you were right: There are almost 200 different types of fungi living on them, a new study finds. In fact, though fungi live all over your skin, they most like to congregate on the heel (home to 80 different types), between...

Doctors 'Print' Airway Tube So Boy Can Breathe

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day. It's the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine, making body parts in the...

Iodine Deficiency While Pregnant Can Hurt Baby's IQ

Don't forget to include dairy products and fish in your diet while pregnant: Those are good sources of iodine, and a new study finds that it's important for your baby's mental development that you get enough of it while you're expecting. Researchers looked at more than 1,000 pregnant women...

Mystery Illness Kills 2 in Alabama

State and federal officials are scrambling to investigate a mysterious respiratory illness that has killed two people and left five others hospitalized in southeast Alabama. Officials describe the outbreak as a cluster of illnesses with flulike symptoms, with fever, coughing, and shortness of breath as the most important symptoms to...

Portland Again Rejects Fluoride in Bitter Vote

The good voters of Portland, Ore., have once again rejected plans to add fluoride to their water to combat tooth decay, keeping it the biggest American city without fluoridation. The city voted 60% to 40% to stay fluoride-free last night, the fourth such rejection since 1956, the Oregonian reports. Fluoridation...

Club Drug 'Special K' Could Treat Depression

Doctors use it as an anesthetic and ravers use it to hallucinate, but a new study indicates that ketamine might have another trick up its sleeve: treating depression. A new study found that the drug the kids call "Special K" is effective at treating major depression compared to an active...

Get Over It, Foodies: Spam Is Delicious

It's time for foodies to stop turning their noses up at Spam, declares Anna Weaver in Slate . She offers up myriad reasons the canned meat deserves a spot at even the fanciest tables: It tastes good . In particular, it's more appetizing than that classic American favorite, the hot dog. But...

Want Health? Feed the Bacteria Living Inside You

Don't look now, but roughly 100 trillion bacteria live in and on your body. According to scientists, these microbes—especially the ones in your gut—may be fending off chronic diseases, moderating your weight, and strengthening your immune system. But our society's processed foods and war on bacteria are posing...

New Psychiatry 'Bible' Under Fire

A new edition of the manual doctors use to diagnose mental illness, the DSM, has just been released by the American Psychiatric Association—but it has already been stirring up controversy for months, reports CBS . Most critically, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health has spoken out against...

Student Hit by Flesh-Eating Bacteria Gets Bionic Hands

A Georgia woman who lost both hands, her left leg, and her right foot after contracting a flesh-eating disease has been fitted with prosthetic hands. Aimee Copeland, 25, has been fitted with a pair of hands with 24 programmable functions that will improve her dexterity. She got the "i-limbs" from...

Inside the Most Expensive Hospital in America

Bayonne, New Jersey, is not a place you want to get sick. The New York Times has combed through Medicare data released by the government this month, and found Bayonne Medical Center charges the highest prices in the country for almost a quarter of the most common hospital treatments. For...

How Your Muscles Impact Your Politics

Are our political debates really just pantomimes of primitive chest-thumping exercises? A new study surveying people about their opinions on the redistribution of wealth and the size of their biceps certainly suggests so. The results: Those with big muscles who were rich tended to vehemently oppose redistribution, while strong poor...

Up to 20% of US Kids Have Mental Disorder

The CDC is out with its first report on mental disorders and kids, and the bottom line is a pretty heavy one: 13% to 20% of kids between ages 3 and 17 now suffer from a mental disorder, per the AFP . And that has costly implications: The disorders spur $247...

Poop Found in Most Swimming Pools

The CDC sampled 161 public swimming pools and discovered a very good reason to keep your mouth closed in the water: 58% of them had fecal contamination, reports USA Today . The pools were in Atlanta, but a CDC official says the findings would almost certainly apply to any city. Researchers...

'Pregnancy Test' Frogs: Bearers of Killer Fungus

A species of frog that was once spread around the world as an early pregnancy test turns out to carry a horrifically deadly pathogen that can decimate local ecosystems. Mid-20th-century doctors used African clawed frogs as a weird-but-reliable pregnancy test—the frogs tend to ovulate when injected with a pregnant...

Jolie's Best Message Applies to All Women

Stories about the victimization of women have been so prevalent of late—from the rising number of assaults in the military to the awful Cleveland case —that Anne Taylor Fleming has been both disgusted and infuriated when catching up on the news, she writes at Reuters . And then along comes...

Inside Angelina Jolie's Treatment

Angelina Jolie was back at work just days after her double mastectomy, Dr. Kristi Funk reveals in a blog post about the star's medical journey. "To a large extent, I believe recovery reflects expectation. Angelina expected to feel well, to be active," Funk writes on the Pink Lotus Breast Center...

Human Stem Cells Made From Cloned Embryos

Scientists have made a long-sought—and controversial—breakthrough: They created stem cells from cloned human embryos for the first time, reports AP . In theory, the development by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University means that doctors might someday be able to grow tissue from an ailing patient's own DNA,...

Parents Sue Over Toddler's Sex Surgery

A couple is suing the state of South Carolina for what they say was a medically unnecessary sexual assignment surgery performed on a 16-month-old child they eventually adopted. The child was born in 2004 with both male and female genitalia and placed in state custody after the termination of parental...

A Secret to Women's Longer Life Revealed

Why do women typically walk the Earth longer than men? According to a new Japanese study, the immune system is to thank—or blame, depending on your gender. It found that men's immune systems weaken more quickly than women's, leaving males more susceptible to disease, the BBC reports. Researchers believe...

Vermont Legalizes Assisted Suicide

Vermont has passed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide, and with Gov. Peter Shumlin's signature expected this week, will become the nation's third state to allow it. Under the new law, people over 18 with an "incurable and irreversible disease" and less than six months left to live can be prescribed...

Google CEO Has Rare Vocal Cord Condition

Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page has broken his silence about the condition that prevented him from speaking publicly last summer , sparking fears he may have had an undisclosed, life-threatening illness. Page says he is in good health, but his left vocal cord has been paralyzed since he caught a...

Study: No Need to Dramatically Cut Salt

Go easy on the salt, but not too easy. That's the surprising finding of a new study from the prestigious Institute of Medicine, reports the New York Times . The report concluded that people who follow the advice of groups such as the American Heart Association and limit intake to 1,...

What's Best for Angelina May Not Be Best for You

There's no question that Angelina Jolie made a courageous move in undergoing a double mastectomy . But in the applause for her decision, it's important to keep the cancer conversation in context, writes Mary Elizabeth Williams—herself a cancer survivor —at Salon . "I can swear to you that every one of...

CNN's Sambolin Plans Double Mastectomy

On the heels of Angelina Jolie's revelation about her double mastectomy , CNN anchor Zoraida Sambolin—of Early Start —has announced she'll also undergo the procedure. "I struggled for weeks trying to figure out how tell you that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was leaving to have surgery,...

Angelina Jolie: I Had Double Mastectomy

Angelina Jolie has had both her breasts surgically removed after learning that she carries the gene BRCA1, which sharply raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. "My doctors estimated that I had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer," Jolie, whose mother died...

Treadmill Desks: What They're Really Like

Sitting while reading this? That's too bad, because sitting for hours every day is known to be unhealthy and walking on a treadmill desk is quite a gas, writes Susan Orlean at the New Yorker . A treadmill desk, or "walking workstation," is simply a treadmill under a standing desk that...

Man Drives to ER Carrying Own Arm

There may be hope for a man who had the intestinal fortitude to pull his own severed arm from machinery and drive more than 9 miles to a hospital all the while hanging onto the limb. The 37-year-old was then flown to another facility in Vienna, Austria, where surgeons are...