It is the most populous country in the world. Half the country is arid or semi-arid and mountains cover three-quarters of it. Natural resources are scarce. Yet 1.3 billion people live in China, which is undergoing a remarkable rate of economic growth. At the same time, China's environmental problems of energy and water shortages, water and air pollution, cropland and biodiversity losses are escalating.

About two million cancer patients currently receiving certain drug therapies and chemotherapy find foods and beverages to have a foul metallic flavor, according to a medical study. In general, more than 40 percent of hospitalized patients suffer from malnutrition due to taste and smell dysfunction.

Perceived facial similarity of children is effectively an estimate of the probability that two children are close genetic relatives according to a new study recently published in Journal of Vision, an online, free access publication of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).

Among the gravest risks of a manned flight to Mars ranks the possibility that massive amounts of solar and cosmic radiation will decimate the brains of astronauts, leaving them in a vegetative state, if they survive at all.

The number of cases of kidney cancer has been rising over the last two decades, and new research from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center shows that this increase is driven largely by the detection of small, presumably curable, kidney masses. But even though the rising incidence has been paralleled by greater use of surgery for kidney cancer, this trend has not led to fewer people dying.

Women who improve their own health before pregnancy have a better chance of delivering a robust, healthy baby. Three important measures include:

In a medical case of Jekyll and Hyde, carbon monoxide – the highly toxic gas emitted from auto exhausts and faulty heating systems – has proven effective in treating the symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), an extremely debilitating condition that typically leads to right heart failure and eventual death.

For patients living with heart failure and other health conditions, blood draws and diagnostic tests are commonplace in order to evaluate their condition. Often, though, chemical or physiologic changes silently cause damage that is not detected until much later.