Researchers have come up with amazing developments in medical technology, though not all of them will stand the test of time. Learn about the latest innovations in medicine, as well as the gadgets available to help monitor and enhance health.
He's summited Mount Everest. He's walked in space seven times.
For the first time, a patient has received a synthetic windpipe that was created in a lab with the patient's own stem cells and without using human donor tissue, researchers said Thursday.
More than two years after a chimpanzee mauled her, Charla Nash will once again be able to eat solid foods and regain her sense of smell thanks to a full face transplant, doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said Friday.
A new report from the AAP clues parents into what their kids are really doing online. Good news: It's not all bad!
Nuclear power has generally proved safe and nondetrimental to human health.
Engineering organs begins with something missing -- a phantom organ in the body that causes a patient incredible discomfort, dysfunction or pain. It ends with a Star Trek-esque feat of engineering where missing organs are replaced using cells culled from a patient's own body.
Robin Gray's knee had been bothering her for almost two years, but when it finally got to the point where it interfered with her duties as a custodian at Emory University, she knew it was time to take action.
For 11 years, Brenda Charett Jensen couldn't speak. She communicated through an electronic device that sounded like a robot. When the batteries ran out, her conversation was over.
Follow the blue path.
Follow the blue path.
Second phase trials have started across Europe into pioneering eye surgery that allows some blind people to see.
One day, Google's chief health strategist, Dr. Roni Zeiger, had an epiphany: On any given day, more people are posing health questions to Google than posing health questions to their doctors.
Brendan Harley beat cancer once as an infant, then faced leukemia as a teen. He survived, but the illnesses left him infertile and feeling guilty.
Like anyone else, Dr. Rachel Zahn loves a deal, so when a friend e-mailed her a link to an internet site offering $99 genetic testing -- usually it costs $499 -- she figured, "Why not?" and sent away for the test.
"I'm on my 800th quit attempt," Justin Randolph, 28, announced recently on a Facebook page created by the New York City Department of Public Health to help smokers become ex-smokers.
Genetics pioneer J. Craig Venter announced Thursday that he and his team have created artificial life for the first time.
Before iPhones, Foursquare and Facebook, B.J. Fogg envisioned a mobile fitness device that coaches the user, tracks her location, and shows her friends also exercising at that time.
Long-awaited data from an international study have shown no evidence of increased risk of brain tumors associated with mobile phones, except in people who have the most exposure.
Walgreens has postponed its plans to sell personal genetic test kits after the Food and Drug Administration intervened.
Imagine having your back cut open, part of your spine removed, a stabilizing device that resembles a mini oil rig mounted on your back, the outer membrane of your spinal cord sliced open and experimental stem cells injected into it -- all for the advancement of science because it's not expected to benefit you.
A slim 6-foot-10 Duke University forward, Mason Plumlee has taken his share of elbows to the ribs.
Rafael Fernandez walks into the Bronx, New York, medical clinic, with his eyes wide open.
Millions of needles used in ports implanted under the skin of chronically ill patients are being voluntarily recalled, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday.
Cruise Bogle, 18, was skimboarding with friends in Delray Beach, Florida, when he took a wave that whipped his board out from under him. Bogle was thrown backward, and his head hit the ocean floor. When friends saw him lying still in the surf, they knew something was wrong and rushed him to the hospital.
A cure for the common cold has eluded scientists since the dawn of mankind.
Watching too much television can make you feel a bit brain-dead. According to a new study, it might also take years off your life.
As a thick, gray haze began to descend over the words in her schoolbooks, and eventually the faces of loved ones, Barbara Campbell barely grasped that she was going blind.
In the year since a U.S. cancer researcher's warning drew wide attention, more evidence is emerging that long-term cell phone use is associated with cancer, but there's still not a definitive explanation or proof of cause and effect.
The meal you ate the first day you started working. The first exam you aced in high school. The shoes you wore to the prom.
Throughout his life, Ronn Wade has been surrounded by death. And in most cases, it hasn't seemed to bother him.
A world record was set recently in Houston, Texas. It wasn't the world's fastest quarter-mile run, the world's largest pumpkin or even the world's heaviest man. It was, however, as stunning to witness: the world's largest senior citizen Wii bowling tournament, as confirmed by Guinness World Records.
Seated on a jetliner, Dr. Mary Gallagher and her husband, Don Dietrich, were about to take off for an anniversary vacation in Puerto Rico. But a glance at her husband of five years set off an alarm -- he was gasping for breath. Gallagher, an anesthesiologist, knew the signs: Dietrich was in cardiac arrest.
On a cold morning in February, 10 days after undergoing in vitro fertilization, Carolyn Savage lay in bed at her Ohio home waiting for the results of her pregnancy test.
Nine years of blindness almost drove Sharron "Kay" Thornton to suicide.
When Bridget and Scott Bear were expecting their first child, they wanted to know what it would cost so they could set aside enough money in their health savings account.
It's not just for French kissing or for showing your dissatisfaction.
For generations the residents of Sao Pedro, Brazil and neighboring Candido Godoi have known their isolated hamlet in southern Brazil was special.
It's Saturday night. Three young women are dressed to the nines at a trendy bistro on Rush Street in downtown Chicago. They're having drinks outside on the kind of summer night that makes you fall in love with the city.
Kim Mickens, 49, has always been the caregiver among her eight brothers and sisters. So when her mother, Delphine Mickens, was told she had Alzheimer's disease, Mickens took care of all the arrangements for her mother's care -- among them, she chose a nursing home not far from her place in Baltimore.
This Caribbean city already known for cigars, furniture, chocolate and coffee may become a magnet for Americans seeking controversial stem cell therapy for life-threatening illnesses if a Florida cardiologist has his way.
Unlike television crime shows in which machines can instantly spit out results, toxicology testing to determine what drugs are in a person's body can be a long and painstaking process.
It's shortly after 5 a.m. when the phone rings, and on the line is a clearly anxious and worried parent.
If your pinkie and ring fingers tingle or feel numb, you might not want to pick up that cell phone to call the doctor.
Here's a little-known fact: Under current law, it's possible to hold a patent on a piece of human DNA, otherwise known as a gene.
Myriad Genetics, a Utah-based company, vowed Wednesday to "vigorously defend" itself against a legal challenge to its patents on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancers, its attorney told CNN.
When George Pinon thinks of colors, he associates them with what other people have described.
Was President Abraham Lincoln dying of a rare genetic disease when an assassin killed him in 1865?
Ahmed Hamdi wants to be a superhero when he grows up. A lot of people at his school will tell you he already is one.
Lt. Col. Greg Gadson is not a bionic man, but he does have a new set of powerful knees.
For years, Donna Mitchell has tried to lower her cholesterol through diet and exercise. She's had limited success.
When Susannah Reid learned she had an extremely rare and aggressive cancer at age 41, she was hit with a double whammy.
In the fight against obesity, doctors have deployed stern warnings, dieting tips, liposuction and open-incision bariatric surgery. But some surgeons have found another avenue for weight loss.
Retirement hasn't been full of lazy days, rounds of golf and luxury vacations for Gary Terry. When this former telecommunications executive called it quits after a 32-year career, he took up an equally time-consuming volunteer job as chairman of the American Heart Association's Texas chapter.
Researchers have solved the first step in treating the common cold, by mapping its entire genome, or genetic map, teams from the University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported Thursday.
The cold, dry air of winter can give you chapped lips, cracked hands, and now, a study suggests, a better chance of getting the flu. A new analysis of previous data shows that in low-humidity conditions, the influenza virus is more likely survive, possibly giving it a better shot at spreading from person to person and making its way to you.
Having a CT scan of the heart to check for heart disease? You may want to ask how your hospital plans to conduct the test. A new study suggests that people who get the common heart test can get a dramatic range of radiation exposures.
Ever wonder how your fingers can tell that silk feels different from paper, which feels different from wood?
In the midst of a frantic week in September filled with auditions and deadlines, New York casting director Michael Cassara had zero down time. So one day, when he felt a sore throat coming on, Cassara had his doctor beamed into his office.
The Food and Drug Administration announced formal guidelines Thursday that will regulate the production of genetically engineered (GE) animals.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania announced in April 2008 the use of an innovative gene therapy treatment to safely restore vision in three adults with a rare form of congenital blindness. The technique involves an injection that delivers DNA to the nucleus of a cell so it can begin making the protein that the blind patients don't have. Although the patients have not achieved normal eyesight, the results set the stage for possible treatment of other retinal diseases.
An expensive CT scan that uses multiple X-rays to produce spectacular 3-D images of the heart can't replace tried-and-true coronary angiography for finding blocked blood vessels in chest-pain patients, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
An expensive CT scan that uses multiple X-rays to produce spectacular 3-D images of the heart can't replace tried-and-true coronary angiography for finding blocked blood vessels in chest-pain patients, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In August, just days before her daughter was to start her sophomore year of college, Dr. Lucy Sauer faced a troubling choice: Should her daughter have a device surgically implanted in her chest to control her heart rhythm?
About 90 percent of U.S. kids ages 8 to 16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so (more if you're a boy). Now a new study suggests virtual violence in these games may make kids more aggressive in real life.
About 90 percent of U.S. kids ages 8 to 16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so (more if you're a boy). Now a new study suggests virtual violence in these games may make kids more aggressive in real life.
Breaking up over e-mail is a social no-no.
Bringing a growing health concern to Congress, scientists squared off Thursday over whether cell phones contribute to brain cancer.