Remember DVD players? You know, those boxes that those oversized blu-ray discs used to slide into? Well, looks like they won't be going the way of VHS tapes and cassettes (ask your parents) just yet. Because researchers have just figured out a way to turn them into affordable, blood-analysing, cellular-imaging, laser-scanning microscopes capable of completing HIV tests in mere minutes. Read More >>

It may sound hard to believe, but doctors from Mississippi are saying that for the first time, an infant has been cured of an HIV infection. The New York Times relays reports from doctors who say the infant had tested positive for HIV on five separate occasions and now, at age two and a half and off drugs for an entire year, the child shows no signs of the virus in its body. Read More >>

Even if it means protection from dangerous, even fatal diseases, having a needle jabbed into your skin and liquid sickness squirted into your flesh is no fun for anyone. There are other needleless injection solutions out there, but a new microneedle array made completely out of dried sugar promises to make vaccination not only painless, but dirt cheap. Read More >>

This isn't a cartoon tree or some strange piece of modern art. In fact, it's what researchers from the University of Texas at Austin saw when they managed to observe a virus in the act of penetrating a cell. Read More >>

No. The chances of getting an STI from peeing in a public bathroom are in the incredibly low-to-no range. Could the organisms that cause chlamydia and gonorrhea infections be present in people's urine that's splattered on the seat? Yes. But are those organisms going to find their way into your urethra or vagina? Not unless you rub the tip of your urethra (or vaginal entrance) on a contaminated toilet seat. Who does that? Read More >>

If you've never heard of 'extreme cake making', here's a deep end introduction. But a small health warning: these particular items aren't for the prudish, or the squeamish. Yuk. Read More >>

It starts with a headache, nothing major. Then the neck stiffness sets in, the high fever. That's all the warning you have before fungal meningitis inflames your brain and takes your life. And it's happening, all of a sudden, to unprecedented numbers of people all across America. Read More >>

Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have developed a pill that can wipe out malaria with a single dose. It's a development that could save millions of lives in Africa alone, not to mention the rest of the world. But there's a teensy weensy little hurdle that must first be overcome: human testing. Read More >>

SARS feels like as much a distant memory of the 2000s as Sean Paul songs, but it's very much alive. In fact, it's breeding in labs around the world—and our own research could trigger the next epidemic. Read More >>

While scientists increasingly understand the genetics of cancer, they've never been able to track how single cancerous cells form tumours in the body, or work out how tumours grow back seemingly from nowhere. New research, however, sheds some light on that problem—and suggests that tumours are fueled by cancer stem cells. Read More >>

Most emerging human diseases come from animals. This map, created by the International Livestock Research Institute, shows the geographical locations of events where a disease has crossed over from animals to humans. Do you live near a hotspot? Read More >>

Over the past few decades, scientists have suggested that high levels of HDL—which has come to be known as "good cholesterol"—can reduce the risk of heart attack. New evidence, however, suggests that might not be the case after all. Read More >>

A mysterious illness that begins as a high fever with little appetite and spreads to a rash on the hands and feet is responsible for the loss of 17 lives, so far, in an impoverished Vietnamese district. 171 others have also been sickened but have been able to recover with proper and timely medical care. Read More >>

For years, we've been treating breast cancer as a single disease. But a new study has reclassified it into ten separate sub-diseases, all with different genetic features — which could transform the way women are diagnosed and treated. Read More >>

Scientists have known for a while that merely walking more can massively decrease the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but they haven't really known why. But now, by forcing healthy people to act like slobs, they're starting to reveal why walking is the best thing you can do for your body. Read More >>