Anna Haensch

Feeling bilious? Have a swig of tonic. Got a kid with a toothache? A dab of cocaine tooth powder could do the trick.

Much to the shock of our 21st-century sensibilities, popular remedies of the late 19th century often contained strong mind-altering substances like cocaine and opium. And while patients ...

How will humans survive the zombie apocalypse? Will it be each man for himself or will a coordinated effort be what saves us from ultimate doom?

An MIT professor is trying to answer this question for us mortals. "There is a price that society pays if everyone determines his behavior ...

Large-scale data mining in health care sounds scary, but dial back that fear for a minute. What about mining your own data to make informed decisions about your day-to-day health?

Programmers all over have been fiddling around with code to find the best ways to help people gather, share and ...

Popular lore has it that the Italian merchant Marco Polo was responsible for introducing the noodle to China. This legend appeals to Italians, but if you ask the Chinese, they may beg to differ.

In her latest book, On the Noodle Road, author Jen Lin-Liu chronicles a six-month ...

Sometimes a drug hits cancer hard. Sometimes the cancer cells are unfazed. But it's often hard to know which outcome to expect.

A group of scientists at the National Cancer Institute has spent the last three years turning some mathematical algorithms loose on giant sets of data to better ...

Anybody who has ever worn a cast knows that it can really cramp your style. You itch. After a while, you stink. At times, it seems like the cast needs even more care than you do. Keep it dry or else!

Other than the addition of garish colors of fiberglass, ...

We open our hymnals to Hymn 379, and we begin to sing. "God is Love, let heav'n adore him / God is Love, let earth rejoice ..."

Lifting voices together in praise can be a transcendent experience, unifying a congregation in a way that is somehow both fervent and soothing. ...

That cat poop can pose a health risk to humans no longer surprises us.

Some cats carry a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. Infected cats shed embryonic T. gondii, called oocysts, in their feces.

These oocysts are easily transmitted to humans, and researchers have explored their possible link to ...

Humans have long relied on the sense of taste in the struggle to survive and multiply. A bitter taste alerts us to a plant that may be poisonous. A sweet taste tells us that a plant is likely high in calories and can help sustain us.

Our sense of taste ...

In the decidedly nutty sport of ultramarathoning, the stakes keep getting higher. The courses get longer and the terrain steeper, but runners continue to push the boundaries of human endurance and sheer will.

So a team of researchers in exercise physiology led by Jonas Saugy, of the University of ...

A burrito is a thing of beauty. Swathed in tortilla, clad in foil, simple ingredients come together and something magical happens.

For John Pepper, CEO of Boloco and self-proclaimed "burrito-obsessed guy," capturing this burrito magic has been a journey. Pepper started Boloco, a chain of more than 20 burrito ...

A dapper older gentleman spurns his mate of a certain age to take a fresh-faced young lover. You've seen that movie before, right?

Well, this choice of youth may turn out to be more than a Hollywood trope. Researchers say decisions like that one may have been the evolutionary source ...

Look through a series of 15th century woodcuts, and you'll find that the leper is as much an icon of medieval art as the crown or the cross.

Leprosy was so common in Europe during the Middle Ages that it's estimated 1 in 30 people was infected with the bacteria. ...