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Three studies found protective benefits from taking cancer daily, including preventing the spread of cancer in patients who already have it

Chances are that if you are reading this, you have a private flush toilet a few steps from your bed. Your commode is more reliable than your mobile connection, and likely will outlast all of your home appliances. Yet huge tracts of the developing world have yet to see so much as a latrine, a situation that facilitates the spread of debilitating or even deadly diarrheal diseases .

By Zoe Corbyn A common assumption is that rising global temperatures will increase the spread of malaria -- the deadly mosquito-borne disease that affects millions of people worldwide. [More]

Rainfalls are suspected to trigger the spread of a multitude of foliar (leaf) diseases, which could be devastating for agriculture and forestry. Instead of focusing on the large-scale, ecological impact of this problem, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and the University of Liege in Belgium are studying the phenomenon from a novel perspective: that of a single rain droplet.

"Splashing" plays a central role in the transport of pollutants and the spread of diseases, but while the sight of a droplet striking and splashing off of a solid surface is a common experience, the actual physical ingredients and mechanisms involved in splashing aren't all that well understood.

Economists are trying to quantify both the spread of the 15-year-old biomimicry industry and its economic effects, and the results are eye-opening. Introduced in 2010, the Da Vinci Index is an attempt to quantify the impact of biomimicry in the U.S. Compiled by Lynn Reaser , chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University's Fermanian Business & Economic Institute in San Diego, the Da Vinci Index measures the use of terms unique to biomimimetic thinking in scientific publications, patents, and grants ( PDF )

They say all roads lead to Rome. Unfortunately that ain’t all that roads lead to. A new study shows that roads can promote the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

That "viral" metaphor for social media just got a little more bona fide. According to a recent slate of independent studies, Twitter can accurately track the spread of a virus or disease -- and do it much faster than traditional surveillance methods.

Invasive species get a bad rap--but we humans are usually to blame for their spread. Take Japanese Stiltgrass, an invasive that arrived from Asia nearly 100 years ago as a packing material for porcelain. When it creeps into forests, it forms dense carpets that can choke out native tree seedlings

By giving male mosquitoes a case of intense infertility (and counting on the females to not notice anything, um, missing from the experience), scientists hope they can prevent a second generation of bugs from spreading malaria.

Esses are everywhere. From economic trends, population growth, the spread of cancer, or the adoption of new technology, certain patterns inevitably seem to emerge. A new technology, for example, begins with slow acceptance, followed by explosive growth, only to level off before "hitting the wall."

Spanish vegetables suspected of contamination with a potentially deadly bacteria are being recalled from stores in Austria and the Czech Republic to prevent the spread of an outbreak that has killed at least 10 people and sickened hundreds across Europe, officials said Sunday.

For more than 50 years microbiologists have warned against using antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. The practice, they argue, threatens human health by turning farms into breeding grounds of drug-resistant bacteria. Farmers responded that restricting antibiotics in livestock would devastate the industry and significantly raise costs to consumers.

The National Ocanic and Atmospheric Administration released this video showing the spread of the tsunami generated by a magnitude 8.9 quake off Sendai, Japan, on March 11. [More]