All Stories by Brian Vastag
- Health & Medicine
Waking Up: Brain stimulator spurs dramatic improvement years after injury
A man who spent 6 years in a minimally conscious state regained the ability to talk, eat, and move after doctors implanted electrodes deep in his brain.
- Health & Medicine
Statin reduces dementia risk
A popular anticholesterol drug reduces older adults' chances of developing dementia.
- Health & Medicine
Grim Reap Purr: Nursing home feline senses the end
A nursing home cat in Rhode Island knows when the end is nigh, predicting with uncanny accuracy when residents will die.
- Health & Medicine
AIDS Abated: Genome scans illuminate immune control of HIV
Three genetic variations picked out by powerful whole-genome scans help explain why some people develop AIDS quickly while others keep it at bay.
- Health & Medicine
fryPod: Lightning strikes iPod users
A jogger wearing an iPod music player suffered second-degree ear and neck burns, burst eardrums, and jaw fractures after lightning struck a nearby tree.
- Health & Medicine
Brain stem cells help Parkinson’s monkeys
Transplants of human-brain stem cells triggered signs of improvement in monkeys with a Parkinson's disease–like disorder.
- Health & Medicine
Smoke This: Parkinson’s is rarer among tobacco users
Life-long smoking cuts the chance of getting Parkinson's disease by about half.
- Health & Medicine
Stents Stumble
After a meteoric rise, stents coated with drugs to prevent renarrowing of clogged arteries have begun to fall from favor among cardiologists.
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Brain Gain
The brain constantly sprouts new neurons, a recently discovered phenomenon that neuroscientists and drugmakers are working to understand and harness.
- Health & Medicine
Guilt by Association: Whole-genome scans yield disease clues
In a sweeping demonstration of the power of the new biology, researchers have linked two dozen genetic variations to six major diseases.
- Health & Medicine
Animal-to-human diseases could be right at home
A new map of where SARS or Ebola might erupt next highlights North America and Western Europe as likely sources.
- Health & Medicine
Beware the bats
Fruit bats in Bangladesh regularly trigger small outbreaks of Nipah virus, a measleslike pathogen that causes brain inflammation and death.
