Health & Science

Children inherit about 30 mutated genes from each parent, fewer than had been thought, but enough in at least one case to pass on inherited illnesses, according to a first detailed look at the blueprint for human life in a family.

A troublingly high number of U.S. patients who are given angiograms to check for heart disease turn out not to have a significant problem, according to the latest study to suggest Americans get an excess of medical tests.

Too many pregnant women who want to avoid a repeat cesarean delivery are being denied the chance, concludes a government panel that urged doctors to rethink litigation-spurred policies that have swung the pendulum back toward the days of "once a C-section, always a C-section."

At a tumultuous time in U.N.-led climate negotiations, one of the world's most credible scientific groups agreed Wednesday to plug the recent cracks in the authoritative reports of the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning global warming panel.

As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time - the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

Three American scientists who contributed to the mapping of the human genetic blueprint - an advance that continues to give the medical world a better understanding of human disease - were awarded the nation's richest prize in medicine and biomedical research Wednesday.

At a tumultuous time in U.N.-led climate negotiations, one of the world's most credible scientific groups agreed Wednesday to plug the recent cracks in the authoritative reports of the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning global warming panel.

It seems the old cliche may be true.

China told the United States on Wednesday to make stronger commitments on climate change and provide environmental expertise and financing to developing nations.

The beleaguered global warming panel has found an outside group to review how it writes its reports.

The Earth really did move during the massive Chile quake: Researchers say cities and islands physically shifted west a bit.

Brazil's president said Tuesday that he kicked the smoking habit he had for 50 years after a recent health scare sent his blood pressure soaring.

Eleven days after her son Benjamin's birth by C-section, Linda Coale awoke in the middle of the night in pain, one leg badly swollen. Just as her doctor returned her phone call asking what to do, she dropped dead from a blood clot.

Nicotine builds up gradually in smokers' brains rather than spiking after each puff, according to a study that might help point to new ways to help people quit smoking.

First the ground shook in Haiti, then Chile and now Turkey. The earthquakes keep coming hard and fast this year, causing people to wonder if something sinister is happening underfoot.