Mary Carmichael

Iceland's deCODE has discovered more genes than any other company on earth. If only it could turn a profit.

Family-fueled medical research makes for great movies, but does it really work?

When I decided to have my first child, my friends who were already parents warned me that I'd soon have someone constantly making demands of me, someone who didn't care about my autonomy, dignity, or privacy.

In the next few days, doctors will have to deal with an influx of patients—and a lack of supplies—to keep casualties to a minimum.

Could the proposed health-care bill have prevented some of America's biggest public health crises?

Last night I told the entire Internet what color bra I was wearing. Usually I try not to overshare, but it was ostensibly for a good cause. Around 4 p.m., I saw a weird Facebook status update from a friend, a journalist turned lawyer whose writing is usually smart, grammatical, and comprehensible.

In the wake of a thwarted terrorist attack on a Northwest flight to Detroit, a renowned psychologist talks about what makes ordinary people do heroic things.

Amid all the talk about filibusters, long-term affects, and 'bending cost curves' one thing has gotten obscured: how will you see your coverage change after health-care reform passes?

What made Brittany Murphy's heart stop beating? We're not likely to know why the actress went into cardiac arrest until toxicology reports come out sometime in the next six weeks.

NFL player Chris Henry's death appears to fit the stereotype of the danger-prone sports star. But are professional athletes really more likely to die violently?

Sudhir Paul's research could be revolutionary—or it could be a waste of time and resources. Why a group of nonscientists has decided to bet on his out-there ideas.

On the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, an argument for teaching evolution to younger children.

It's easy to get lost in the dismal statistics coming out of the new study on children and health insurance: there are 7 million uninsured kids in America; they're 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than insured kids are; basic insurance could have saved 17,000 of them from dying over the last two decades.

There are two ways to try to draw attention to the oft-ignored issue of diarrhea in the Third World. You can point out that it's literally a dead serious thing, an ailment that kills more than a million children under age 5 every year.

President Obama is visiting New Orleans for only one day. His potential impact on the city's children, however, could last much longer.

A lot has been said about the recent Double X column by Lucinda Rosenfeld on friendship, loyalty, and date-rape drugs. Like many of the site's commenters, I'm livid about the column and not at all mollified by Lucinda's halfhearted apology to readers.

It can be, but it can be good for you, too—a fact scientists tend to ignore and regular folks don't appreciate.

Recently, a friend sent me a 2006 clip from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring a room of fussy newborns and a woman who claimed she could translate their cries.

A Phoenix obstetrician uses controversial methods to help infertility patients and their babies survive high-risk multiple-birth pregnancies. But is he promising more than he can deliver?

It's not just Americans anymore; the whole world is becoming obese, and we have more than just the advent of cheap cheeseburgers to blame.

The business of storing umbilical-cord blood is growing. Is salesmanship outpacing science?

What happens after Nebraska amends its child drop-off law?

New tests for Down syndrome could lead to more abortions and less support for families.

Even before the storm, they were some of the country's neediest kids. Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are "the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.," says Irwin Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund and a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Residents are often too busy wiping the noses and taking the temperatures of other people's kids to do the same for their own.

Lawsuit charges drugmaker was deceptive about Neurontin.

Health officials are mounting the boldest campaign against malaria in 50 years. Will it work this time?

Why the candidates' plans might not deliver on universal health coverage

Why don't the medical shows pledge that their 'doctors' will prescribe generics when possible?

Daniel Levitin on the Stones, 'happy juice' and death at the watering hole