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Astronomers have known for some 10 years that nearly every large galaxy contains at its core an immense black hole--an object having such intense gravity that even light cannot escape.

The cholera epidemic in Haiti has cast a stark light on deep development holes and disagreements about whether a short-term patch--in the form of a cholera vaccine--can help in the long-term fight for better health. [More]

By Kevin Gray and Joseph Guyler Delva PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti will commemorate the two-year anniversary on Thursday of a devastating earthquake that ravaged the Western Hemisphere's poorest country as it struggles to rebuild and hundreds of thousands of quake victims remain homeless. [More]

People with high blood pressure are often told to watch the salt. And it’s long been thought that hypertension related to excess salt is caused by the salt increasing the volume of the blood. Which in turn puts added pressure on the blood vessel walls

Adding to its already long roster of firsts , NASA's Kepler spacecraft has found the three smallest extrasolar planets ever detected -- all of them smaller than Earth, and the most diminutive no larger than Mars. The newly discovered trio forms a miniature planetary system orbiting a cool, dim red dwarf star called KOI-961. [More]

Jeanne Baret was passionate about science. So passionate that, in the 1760s, the Frenchwoman disguised herself as a man

It wouldn't have mattered if Bill Clinton inhaled, as far as his lungs are concerned.

Sugary drinks are one of the leading culprits behind America's weight problem. Whether it's sugar-sweetened soda, sports drinks, teas or juices, we're each gulping down an average of 70,000 liquid calories each year.

In a sign of pessimism about humanity's future , scientists today set the hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" forward one minute from two years ago. [More]

The race to the $1,000 genome heated up today as Life Technologies, based in Carlsbad, Calif., announced that it will debut a new sequencing machine this year that will eventually be capable of decoding entire human genomes in a day for less than $1,000. The machine, called the

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Alarmed at signs that the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals is blunting these key weapons against human disease, governments are taking action. In industrial farming, antimicrobials are commonly given to farm animals to treat infections, and prophylactically to prevent disease or spur growth. [More]

By Quirin Schiermeier of Nature magazine Natural disasters around the world last year caused a record $380 billion in economic losses. [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine The Netherlands, one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, would seem to be an inauspicious place to detect radio whispers from the distant Universe.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gamow-gravity There's nothing like a nasty cold to make you appreciate good health. The same goes for the state of the universe: Tweaking just one of the fundamental physical laws or constants, normally perfectly "fine-tuned" at the right values to allow stars, planets, atoms and life as we know it to flourish, could turn things very different -- quite unpleasantly so. Imagining such a "bizarro" universe may heighten your appreciation for the norm.