While it’s probably most famous for its role in gene editing, CRISPR does more than just that: its ability to precisely cut and alter DNA could lead to new antibiotics, faster diagnosis tools, and more. Chapters CREATING ANTIBIOTICS 1:07...

Public health activities are all the ways society coordinates to deliver better health to people. That may sound super broad, and it is, so in this episode of Crash Course Outbreak Science, we'll take a look at public health works to...

We don’t know what causes non-hereditary Parkinson's disease, but researchers have recently identified a gene that might help shed some light on those cases. And another paper suggests that the impact we're having on the frequency of...

Volcanoes can show nature's rage. What are the biggest eruptions we've witnessed in our history?

How is it that a breathalyzer can measure the alcohol content in someone’s blood, hours after they had their last drink, based on their breath alone? And could we use this same technology to detect disease by analyzing a person’s...

Neuroscientist Sergiu P. Pasca has made it his life's work to understand how the human brain builds itself -- and what makes it susceptible to disease. In a mind-blowing talk laden with breakthrough science, he shows how his team figured...

The first time you visit a new doctor, they’ll probably ask you about your family history - but it turns out that family history doesn’t tell you everything about the risks that can be hidden in your genes.

The UN predicts that antimicrobial resistance will be our biggest killer by 2050. "That should really scare the hell out of all of us," says bioprocess engineer Leon Marchal. He's working on an urgently needed solution: transforming the...

An average teaspoon of ocean water contains five million bacteria and fifty million viruses -- and yet we are just starting to discover how these "invisible engineers" control our ocean's chemistry. At TEDxMonterey, Melissa Garren sheds...

The bubonic plague, which killed around 1/5 of the world's population in the 14th century, is still around today -- but it now claims only a few thousand lives each year. How did that number shrink so drastically? Sharon N. DeWitte...

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting over 40 million people worldwide. And though it was discovered over a century ago, scientists are still grappling for a cure. Ivan Seah Yu Jun describes how Alzheimer's...

Patenting a new drug helps finance its immense cost to develop -- but that same patent can put advanced treatments out of reach for sick people in developing nations, at deadly cost. Ellen 't Hoen talks about an elegant, working solution...

You might not know this: Many of the medicines we take -- common drugs like Ambien and everyday aspirin -- were only ever tested on men. And the unknown side effects for women can be dangerous, even deadly. Alyson McGregor studies the...

From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention operated an extremely unethical medical experiment on the effects of outcomes of untreated syphilis. Hundreds of poor Black men...

You might expect to find these fish at the core of an ancient, distant asteroid, but we find them instead on Earth. That doesn’t mean they aren’t special, though. In fact, their immune systems may be the key to unlocking a new treatment...

What if we could use brain waves to treat Alzheimer's? Professor and neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai details a promising new approach to artificially stimulate gamma brain waves using light and sound therapy, to increase connectivity and...

When we think of the neurotransmitter dopamine, we often imagine it, and other molecules in our brains, as doing one specific thing. But that's just flat out wrong!

Detecting diseases early can be a big help when it comes to treating them, and researchers may have gotten one step closer to diagnosing Alzheimer's with a simple blood test.

Breast milk grows babies' bodies, fuels neurodevelopment, provides essential immunofactors and safeguards against famine and disease -- why, then, does science know more about tomatoes than mother's milk? Katie Hinde shares insights into...

The healthcare industry in America is so focused on pathology, surgery and pharmacology -- on what doctors "do" to patients -- that it often overlooks the values of the human beings it's supposed to care for. Palliative care physician...

During the period of rapid industrialization at the turn of the 20th century, factory jobs were incredibly unsafe. That is, until Dr. Alice Hamilton basically became an investigative reporter to figure out how factories were poisoning...

Recent discoveries about the Arc protein have shown that its function and origin may be even more complicated than scientists originally thought.

Charles Darwin had a great mind, but a not-so great body. Scientists have spent years trying to uncover the mysteries of his poor health.

Humans have been battling heartburn for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But recently the incidence has risen, making it a common complaint worldwide. What causes this problem, and how can it be stopped? Rusha Modi details the...