Health Updates

The nation's largest medical lab company says it recently discovered and fixed a problem that led to inaccuracies in a small number of tests for vitamin D deficiency.

The Jurassic version of jumbo jets - huge flying creatures weighing hundreds of pounds - is a mystery of dinosaur-era flight: How did something so big get off the ground? A Johns Hopkins University biologist thinks he has figured out the answer.

Babies do better after a scheduled Caesarean section if they're born no sooner than seven days before their due date, a new large study of U.S. births shows. Those delivered earlier had more complications, including breathing problems, even though they were full term, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Even just a few days made a difference, they said.

Health officials are investigating a salmonella outbreak that has reportedly sickened nearly 400 people in 42 states, but they don't know how the bacteria are spreading.

When galaxies initially formed, they weren't the first in the cosmic neighborhood. The supermassive black holes, which reside at the center of galaxies, probably moved in first, a new astronomy study suggests.

You've heard of making cheese from goats' milk, but prescription drugs? In what would be a scientific first, an anti-clotting drug made from the milk of genetically engineered goats moved closer to government approval Wednesday after experts at the Food and Drug Administration reported that the medication works and its safety is acceptable.

Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says. Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.

The Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Loch Ness will vie with more than 200 other spectacular places in the next phase of the global competition for the New 7 Wonders of Nature, organizers said Wednesday.

Parkinson's sufferers who had electrodes implanted in their brains improved substantially more than those who took only medicine, according to the biggest test yet of deep brain stimulation. The study, which followed patients for six months, offers the most hopeful news to date for Parkinson's sufferers. The new technique reduced tremors, rigidity and flailing of the limbs and allowed people to move freely for nearly five extra hours a day.

Ever watched a teen skulk in the corner of a toddler-packed pediatrician's waiting room, obviously wishing to be anywhere else?