Even healthy tissues can build up mutations, some of which have been tied to cancer.

A massive star explosion 2.6 million years ago may be the reason we walk on two feet.

The condition is on the rise because the most frequent cause is obesity, which continues its unrelenting climb among American adults.

Modern humans and Neanderthals may have diverged a long, long time ago, at least 800,000 years back.

A slowing rate of improvement hints at a looming asymptote, at least on a population-wide basis

You probably don't know second leading cause of cancer, because the scientists have only recently made the connection.  It's obesity.

Clumps of proteins found in the brains of people who have Parkinson's disease are also found somewhere else in the body — inside the appendixes of healthy people. This finding has led researchers to study the link between the appendix and the risk of developing Parkinson's. For example, an October 2018 study found that removing the appendix was associated with a decreased risk of developing the disorder, Live Science reported.

Jo Cameron is one of two people on Earth known to have a mutation that means she feels almost no pain.

Emotional stress may trigger an irregular heart beat, which can lead to a more serious heart condition later in life, new research shows. New research shows how two proteins that interconnect in the heart can malfunction during stressful moments, leading to arrhythmia, according to a study published Wednesday in Molecular Cell.

Survey finds that ‘normal’ human tissues are riddled with mutations.

History and literature are filled with warnings about the danger of seeking eternal life. But in the latest episode of Crazy/Genius, some scientists say that a dramatic expansion of human lifespans is within reach.

Our ability to see colors develops in the womb. Now scientists have replicated that process, which could help accelerate efforts to cure colorblindness and lead to new treatments for diseases.

Being unfit should be treated as a disease that has a prescription, called exercise, the study's author said.

An international team of researchers, including from the University of Washington, has completed a 3D virtual reconstruction of a Neandertal thorax a model that indicates an upright individual.

Appendectomy decreases risk of the neurodegenerative disease, though we can’t yet explain why

Our weight might not be controlled solely by what we eat. When we eat, and when we get to sleep, may be just as important. A small study published this week in Current Biology found people who had been thrown off their circadian rhythms burn more calories in the late afternoon and evening hours than in the morning, when calorie burn is at its lowest. Later in the day, calorie burn increases by 10 percent, or about 129 calories.

We all have an innate ability to pick a face out of a crowd. But some can memorise thousands of people – often seen only fleetingly on CCTV. Alex Moshakis meets the ‘super recognisers’

It’s not yet time to abandon the idea that adult human brains make new nerve cells.

Freud’s notion of a dark, libidinous unconscious is obsolete. A new theory holds that the brain produces a continuous stream of unconscious predictions

Black Americans are more likely than whites to develop Alzheimer's. Yet black people studied appeared to have lower levels of a toxic substance associated with the disease, researchers say.

Researchers found evidence that fasting affects circadian clocks in the liver and skeletal muscle, causing them to rewire their metabolism, which can ultimately lead to improved health and protection against aging-associated diseases.

Living organisms are governed by an internal biological clock known as the circadian rhythm, and as the Earth rotates every 24 hours, this clock aligns with the cycle of day and night. In a new study, scientists reveal that this process has a strong link to mental health. There’s a larger chunk of the genome dedicated to body clocks than previously realized, and those genes are linked to others that determine a person’s overall state of well-being.

There was a time when skipping breakfast was nothing short of dietary blasphemy. But recently, breakfast’s status as the “most important meal of the day” has come under some scrutiny, especially its key role in common weight loss strategies. Proponents of the idea that eating breakfast is important for weight loss have just been dealt another blow.

The old adage “use it or lose it” tells us: if you stop using your muscles, they’ll shrink. Until recently, scientists thought this meant that nuclei – the cell control centers that build and maintain muscle fibers – are also lost to sloth.

Scientists know that the type of fat you can measure with a tape isn’t the most dangerous. But what is the most effective way to fight internal, visceral fat that you cannot see or feel? The answer: exercise. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center analyzed two types of interventions – lifestyle modification (exercise) and pharmacological (medicine) – to learn how best to defeat fat lying deep in the belly. The study is published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Having sex the night before a battery of physical tests does not seem to help or hurt athletic performance, according to two new preliminary studies. “I knew some people that completed their master’s theses on the topic but could not get it their studies published or had no motivation or desire to do so. I thought that this was a disservice to the scientific community that difficult studies such as this one would remain unnoticed by being unpublished,” the author of the studies told PsyPost.

Reproductive tract’s shape lets only strong swimmers through to egg, research suggests

Among the goals of the group, called the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research, are to share findings and lobby governments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to increase funding and create pathways to approve age-slowing therapies.

For millions of sperm it is the end of the road. Scientists have found evidence that the female reproductive tract is shaped in such a way that stops poor swimmers from reaching their goal. Researchers used small-scale models and computer simulations to show that pinch points that behave like gates along the sperm’s arduous path from cervix to egg allow only the fastest ones through. Tests with sperm from men and bulls revealed that the strongest swimmers were most likely to make it through the tight spots, known as “strictures”, while weaker ones were caught in oncoming currents that propelled them backwards when they got too close.

Taking a young person’s plasma and infusing it into an older person to ward off aging -- a therapy that’s fascinated some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley -- has no proven clinical benefit, the Food and Drug Administration said.

In the past, nighttime exercisers have been issued a warning: going hard around bedtime could lead to sleeplessness, but an increasing number of studies, including a study published Wednesday in Experimental Physiology, are showing that late-night exercise doesn’t disrupt sleep like previously thought.

You can’t get adequate UVB exposure sitting indoors or in a car.

Neanderthals have a reputation they do not deserve. Hunched over and hairy, these ancient hominins are often depicted as primitive and uncultured, resembling apes more than us.

It's a beautiful idea, when you think about it: You can leave the old you behind and become a completely new person every seven years. Unfortunately, it's just not true. Chances are you can't actually remember where you heard this, but the truth is that the seven-year myth isn't even a rough average of every cell's lifespan.

“How about breasts?” The question came from a jock-y guy in one of my graduate school classes on human evolution. Far from offensive, the query was appropriate and astute. My classmates and I nodded approval, and the professor added it to a growing list on the board. We were brainstorming features that distinguish our species, Homo sapiens, from other primates. That list includes human peculiarities like big brains, upright walking, language, furless bodies … and permanently enlarged breasts after puberty.