public health

Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.

Preliminary data suggest that the newly dubbed Omicron variant may be more infectious than previous versions of the virus, but it will take time to obtain the reliable data needed to answer pressing questions about its biology.

Health Canada has given the single COVID-19 shot the official greenlight for use in people 18 and older.

Epidemiological research suggests that a flu diagnosis might be one factor in the eventual onset of the neurodegenerative disease, but experts say it doesn’t prove a causal relationship.

Researchers used sequencing data and phenotypic traits to predict which of 5,400 species were most likely to be susceptible to contracting and spreading the virus back to humans.

Pharoah’s work ended endemic cretinism in a remote region of Papua New Guinea and contributed to the understanding of myriad other perinatal health conditions.

In response to two November 2021 articles in The Scientist that called out preprints as a source of medical misinformation, the cofounders of bioRxiv and medRxiv say it’s not the publishing model that’s at fault.

While the weather isn’t currently the dominant factor driving SARS-CoV-2 transmission, experts say that in the future COVID-19 may become a disease of winter.

With the final hurdle cleared, the COVID-19 vaccine could be administered to US children ages 5 through 11 as early as today.

Authors of a newly published study on the use of an antidepressant for COVID-19 claim the drug greatly reduces hospitalizations and mortality. But some experts question whether that’s really what the data show.

Preprints are likely here to stay. The press, the public, and the research community must adapt to this relatively recent model of scientific publishing if we are to extract its benefits while avoiding its pitfalls.

RTS,S has several flaws but could still save tens of thousands of lives, experts say.

The achievement bolsters hopes that nonhuman animals could be used to remedy the shortage of transplantable organs.

The CDC now suggests that only children who were within 3 feet, not 6 feet, of an infected student should quarantine, provided they were masked in a classroom. Does the science support this change?