Life Science

How can spam e-mail help fight HIV? Find out how spam e-mail and HIV are linked and learn about new methods for HIV treatment.

By Josh Clark

Have you ever seen a baby with a tail? How about a whale with legs? Believe it or not, these things happen. They're called atavisms, and they might help us figure out evolution.

By Katie Lambert

The more you know about your memory, the better you'll understand how you can improve it. Get details on how your memory works and how aging affects your ability to remember.

By Richard C. Mohs

Scientific studies are showing that lefties are quicker and more adroit in some activities than their right-handed counterparts. How true is this idea?

By Julia Layton

The trials of being a lefty are numerous. You jostle for elbow room at the table, use scissors that feel funny in the hand and are teased for writing oddly. But do beleaguered lefties get the last laugh in sports?

By Robert Lamb

For Jack and his beanstalk, the sky was the limit, but nature's giants hit a point at which they can't grow any taller. What prevents lofty trees like sequoias from soaring any higher?

By Jacob Silverman

Doctors always want your blood, but one day, a health care professional may ask you to open up and say, "Ptooey!" Why? Your spit holds a mother lode of biological information.

By William Harris

A gulf of difference may separate our human world of empires, science and spirituality from the animal wilds of the other great apes. But the genetic differences are pretty meager.

By Robert Lamb & Desiree Bowie

Can humans live forever? No, but thanks to the discovery of the Hayflick limit, we know that cells can conceivably divide forever without dying.

By Josh Clark

Everything has to start somewhere, including us humans. But where? Was it Africa, or were there multiple ground zeros for humanity's explosive growth and eventual world domination?

By Robert Lamb

Three weeks of hard work. Is that all it takes to kick your smoking habit, taste for junk food or serial inability to stop hitting the snooze button? Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it?

By Julia Layton

How can something as delicate and delicious as a cranberry thrive in something as filthy as a bog? Blame it on the durability of this most unusual and hardy plant.

By Russel Avery

You've heard it on the lips of every newscaster and seen it in the pages of every newspaper and Web site: swine flu. Just how worried should we be about the 2009 version of the H1N1 virus?

By Molly Edmonds

A funny thing happens when you live in complete darkness. You lose your eyesight. At least that's what's happened to the species that have evolved inside our deepest, darkest caves.

By Debra Ronca

They call kudzu the plant that ate the South for a reason. How did this leafy green legume make its way here all the way from Asia, and how has it managed to devour entire buildings?

By Victoria Vogt

Happiness is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, it can also be elusive due to stress or depression. However, strategies abound that you can use to trick yourself into being happy. Ready for 10 of them?

By Josh Clark & Jessika Toothman

We need food for sustenance and nutrition, but we also eat for pleasure. We like the way some things taste, and enjoy the experience of eating, but can food actually make us happy?

By Josh Clark

Clowns might seem to have more foes than friends, but these entertainers are a key part of laughter therapy in hospitals. There is increasing evidence that a few hearty chuckles can help you along the road to recovery.

By Molly Edmonds

Traditional psychology has proven effective in studying and treating mental illness. However, some in the field want to study what makes patients happy instead of what makes them miserable.

By Josh Clark

Exercise, hot peppers, sex: All of these things are said to give you an endorphin rush. What's the science behind this chemical high -- and how do you keep it going?

By Tom Scheve

Religion is one of the three things you're never supposed to talk about if you don't want your dinner party to turn into a food fight. But what about looking at religion through the lens of science instead of faith? Is there a connection between our gray matters and pray matters?

By Molly Edmonds

So you're at a family dinner, and your uncle stands up and dramatically announces that he has a brain tumor. How does he know? Because he researched his frequent headaches on the Internet.

By Emilie Sennebogen

Your little brother might think it's funny to put a rubber snake in your pocket or jump out from a closet in a dark hallway, but your heart rate might disagree. Is it possible to be scared out of both your wits and your life?

By Molly Edmonds

Are you the first to complain when it's too hot or too cold at work? Extremophiles have news for you: Suck it up. These hardy microbes make most of us humans seem like whimpering Goldilocks, and studying them may tell us more than you might imagine.

By Jacob Silverman & Desiree Bowie

Sometimes you meet someone who smiles at you and exchanges pleasantries, but you still walk away feeling certain that you don't like him or her. You're not nuts -- you might be picking up on microexpressions.

By Tom Scheve