Arizona Science Desk
One vending machine in Tucson aims to make kratom more available for people looking to get off opioids, but critics say there's no way to show the unregulated drug is safe or effective.
June 30, 2017
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have released its annual report on trends in health statistics. It looks at everything from life expectancy to smoking rates to access to care.
June 29, 2017
If you huff and you puff, can you blow a foam house down? Turns out, you can build real houses out of foam and they won’t fall down.
June 29, 2017
Wednesday night, Waymo conducted tests with emergency vehicles in Chandler to teach its cars one of the most basic lessons in driver’s ed: Pull over to let emergency vehicles pass.
June 29, 2017
Some Arizona physicians are joining the chorus condemning the U.S. Senate’s version of health-care reform. About a dozen doctors joined Democratic state Rep. Randall Friese at the Capitol in Phoenix on Wednesday to speak out against the bill, now shelved in D.C. until after the July 4 recess.
June 29, 2017
The smartphone was a major innovation — positive in many ways. It allows us to reach friends, family and coworkers via talking, texting and e-mail. We can read books and watch movies on them, too. Now it turns out there’s actually a physical problem related to smartphones. It’s called “text neck.”
June 28, 2017
Doctors are supposed to be the ones who treat people — they’re not the ones we think about needing to get treatment. Michael Myers is professor of clinical psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York and, in his new book "When Physicians Die by Suicide," he takes a closer look at the issue of doctors who die by suicide.
June 28, 2017
Environmentalists fighting to protect the endangered Ocelot seen in southern Arizona agreed this week to settle a lawsuit against the federal government.
June 28, 2017
Navajo women are less likely to break their hips than white women, according to a study conducted on the reservation. Modern science suggests they’re relying on an old tradition for their calcium. This is the third and final part of the series Fry Bread Nation.
June 28, 2017
Mild winters don’t kill off the mosquito larvae.
June 27, 2017
Those supporting the Republican plan to appeal the Affordable Care Act suffered another blow on Tuesday after the Congressional Budget Office found that the Senate's healthcare bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act, would cause 22 million Americans to lose coverage by 2026.
June 27, 2017
For centuries the Navajo herded sheep all across the rolling hills and mesas that make up the vast reservation. Over the last three decades, many of those sheep have grazed on abandoned uranium mines that are still toxic today. Researchers are now investigating whether this Navajo staple is killing people. Part two of the series Fry Bread Nation.
June 27, 2017
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has removed the Hualapai Mexican vole from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife because genetic research shows that it’s not a separate subspecies.
June 27, 2017
The novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" is turning 200 years old in 2018. The novel and its themes have continued their deep hold on writers and readers alike. Now a new annotated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores questions of science, engineering and philosophy.
June 26, 2017
Fry bread is a Navajo staple and a source of pride, but it’s also a source of poor nutrition on a reservation labeled a food desert by the U.S. government. This is part one of the series Fry Bread Nation.
June 26, 2017
The Frye Fire has burned tens of thousands of acres southwest of Safford, some of them uncomfortably close to Mount Graham International Observatory.
June 24, 2017
If you have to go outside during these hot summer days, you’ll face not only blast-furnace heat but also the unmistakable cacophony of cicadas.
June 23, 2017
In a new survey released by Home Instead Senior Care, a senior care provider, nearly half of the 1,000 female caregivers surveyed nationwide say they sometimes have to choose between being a good employee and a good daughter.
June 23, 2017
People with disabilities and disability advocates are weighing in on the new Republican healthcare proposal, which threatens to decimate Medicaid.
June 23, 2017
Flu vaccines are never 100 percent effective, but new federal statistics show that the vaccine released last year did a particularly bad job at protecting certain age groups, including many seniors.
June 23, 2017