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Recent Columns:
Nuts, crocodiles and witch trials may seem to have little to do with Viagra -- but at one time or another, they've all been employed against erectile dysfunction.
Later this month, kisses will be exchanged on cards, in boxes of candy -- and, of course, on the lips. Scientists know how humans kiss and what happens to the body during a kiss, but why people began puckering up in the first place remains unknown.
Each year in the western U.S., a handful of people come down with the plague, catching the ancient disease from animals (often rodents) that harbor the bacteria. A National Park Service employee recently died of the disease, and an Arizona woman became infected but survived.
The world is getting older. Today, people over 60 make up about 11% of the world's population and are projected to make up more than 20% by 2050. But although that segment of the population is growing fast, accumulating even faster are the number of people living past 100.
IN May, soccer's international governing body, FIFA, banned international matches in stadiums at elevations higher than 2,500 meters, or roughly 8,200 feet. The concern: "Thin" mountain air can take a heavy toll on people accustomed to breathing at sea level.
Running is among the oldest of all competitive sports — in fact, for the first centuries of the Olympics, it was the only sport in the games. Ancient Olympic competitors either sprinted or ran for distance, but the similarity to today's events end there. Ancient poets and writers tell tales of runners (barefoot, bare and slick with oil) tripping each other, cutting corners, pulling competitors' hair to get ahead and even of all-out fights erupting over who crossed the finish line first.
Thirteen centuries ago, Pope Zacharias quarantined jaundiced patients to stop liver sickness from spreading through Rome. But despite the fact that researchers (and a pope) have long thought some forms of liver disease — namely hepatitis — to be contagious, it took centuries of investigation before a team of scientists discovered the cause of infection. Even then, it was largely by chance.
Tidy hair tucked into a white cap, face illuminated by the lantern that led her way, Florence Nightingale achieved lasting fame by saving the lives of British soldiers in wartime.
Armed with a caliper and a ceramic head, a 19th century phrenologist could supposedly distinguish a homebody from a wanderer, a generous man from a miser and a math whiz from a dunce. Such "doctors" had a large following in Europe and the U.S. more than a century ago.
A "fiery serpent" that plagued the Israelites in the Old Testament and that's been found in Egyptian mummies continues to afflict tens of thousands of people today.