Hundreds of scientists marched under sunny skies in front of federal offices in Los Angeles on Friday as part of a day of nationwide protests against Trump administration policies. Pushing back against perceived threats to research and science, they bore on-theme signs, including one that read “What would Albert do?”…

Officials announced Friday that Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman’s wife, had died of hantavirus — ending speculation about the circumstances surrounding her death while sparking new questions about the rodent-spread disease. Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a disease that attacks the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, Dr. Heather Jarrell, chief medical…

As thick clouds of smoke rolled across Los Angeles in early January, Allison Shultz opened a freezer and took out a stash of pristine white pigeon feathers. The ornithology curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County placed handfuls of feathers between two small screens and clipped them…

If you want to make this country great, imagine the strength of a nation whose children have been fought for and know they have been fought for. Last month, my son reached two years in remission from a rare, malignant cancer that almost took his eye and his life. He…

To hear Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tell it, making America healthy again means making American food healthy again. The nation’s top health official says hundreds of additives should be removed from the U.S. food supply out of concern that they’re contributing to a rash of chronic health problems. Plenty of…

They say everything old is new again. Here are a few outdated bacteria and viruses looking to trend again as vaccination rates fall. Measles is in the air! That is to say that this highly infectious airborne virus has been spotted in a handful of states, at Los Angeles International…

The boat bobbed gently off Malibu’s Big Rock Beach as a trio of scientific divers wriggled into wetsuits and double-checked tanks and regulators. Behind them unfurled a panorama of devastation from the Palisades fire a month earlier. Blackened vegetation dotted the hillsides rising above Pacific Coast Highway. Rubble and lonely…

Before there was light, there was cosmic inflation. Before life, planet Earth, the first galaxies — and even before the violent explosion of hot dense primordial stuff scientists traditionally have thought of as the Big Bang — our universe was in an exotic state, expanding exponentially at an unfathomable rate.…

The chances that an asteroid, known as 2024 YR4, could hit Earth in seven years have fluctuated recently, but experts aren’t preparing for the worst yet. At the end of 2024, a NASA-funded telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first spotted 2024 YR4 and a month later scientists concluded there was…

As federal job eliminations struck the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service on Thursday, scientists and environmental advocates denounced the cuts, saying they could cause real harm to Americans. The full extent of the layoffs across NOAA were not immediately clear, but Democratic legislators said hundreds…

When the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus made its first appearance at a U.S. poultry farm in February 2022, roughly 29,000 turkeys at an Indiana facility were sacrificed in an attempt to avert a larger outbreak. It didn’t work. Three years later, highly pathogenic avian influenza has spread to all…

The gunk has turned up on shorelines from Malibu to Redondo Beach: ghostly lines of charred black bits and melted debris left behind by retreating waves. It’s a mix of ash, sand and pulverized flecks of burned wood and plastic, material destroyed during January’s fires and then washed into the…

More than 900 Californians — including 15 children — have succumbed to the flu this season in what has turned out to be one of the worst surges of the respiratory illness in years, according to a report released Friday by the California Department of Public Health. Most of the…

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is keeping its recent restrictions on gender-affirming care in place as hospital officials review decisions by federal judges to pause parts of President Trump’s executive order targeting the use of puberty blockers, hormones and other procedures for transgender youths. In separate rulings, U.S. District Court judges…

When Colleen Henderson’s three-year-old daughter complained of pain while using the bathroom, doctors brushed it off as a urinary tract infection or constipation, common maladies in the potty-training years. Henderson, however, suspected it could be something worse, and asked for an ultrasound. The doctor and ultrasound technician told her that…

We are living in an epidemic of chronic disease, with a growing number of pesticides, chemicals and food additives implicated in the declining health of Americans. Since 2019, another factor has been at play as well: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has driven a huge increase in chronic health consequences, broadly referred…

State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) is frustrated by the lack of wastewater monitoring for H5N1 bird flu in the state’s most at risk communities: regions of the Central Valley where dairy workers, dairy herds and commercial poultry operations are most concentrated. On Tuesday, she introduced a bill to fix that.…

A new study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the H5N1 bird flu virus is likely circulating undetected in livestock in many parts of the country and may be infecting unaware veterinarians. In the health agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a group of…

USC scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery about the nature of the Earth’s enigmatic inner core, revealing for the first time that this 1,500-mile-wide ball of iron and nickel is changing. The planet’s inner core was previously thought of as a hard, solid sphere. But a new study has found…

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Monday blocked the Trump administration from making billions of dollars in NIH funding cuts hours after California and 21 other Democratic-run states sued, saying the action would hurt Americans who benefit from life-saving medical discoveries into cancer, diabetes and other major diseases. In granting…

The best and the worst thing about vaccination, pediatrician Dr. Adam Ratner says, is that it “makes nothing happen.” A child successfully inoculated against a vaccine-preventable disease — the measles, let’s say, to name the most infectious of them all — doesn’t fall sick with that condition, doesn’t miss school,…

Each year, the National Institutes of Health gives billions of dollars to the University of California to pay for research into cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases it has been at the forefront of studying for decades. But a drastic cut to NIH funding under the Trump…

In the days leading up to a pivotal vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to become America’s top heath official, all eyes were focused on Sen. Bill Cassidy. And the pivotal issue for the Louisiana Republican was Kennedy’s skepticism toward vaccines. Cassidy chairs the Senate committee that oversees the…

When the fires erupted Jan. 7, burn centers across the Los Angeles region braced for an influx of patients, updating one another on the beds and staff available for critically injured people. The Eaton and Palisades fires would ultimately claim at least 29 lives. Dozens of people would visit hospitals…

San Mateo County public health officials announced Thursday that they’d discovered a pet cat in Half Moon Bay infected with H5N1 bird flu. That comes just two days after they reported finding the virus in a backyard poultry flock in Redwood City. The reports came on the heels of a…

A version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed a person in Louisiana and severely sickened a teenager in Canada has now been detected in dairy herds in Nevada. The version, known as D1.1, is circulating in wild birds around the nation — causing massive die-offs in places such…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s nominee to lead the sprawling federal bureaucracy responsible for the healthcare of millions of Americans, received the backing of a key Senate committee on Tuesday despite his history of denying the science supporting vaccinations and support of disproved medical conspiracy theories. GOP Sen. Bill…

Finding microplastics in human body parts is not new: Scientists have uncovered the minuscule waste products in human blood, lungs, brains, hearts and testicles. But a new study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, shows a lockstep relationship between the amount of plastic found in tissues harvested from human…

Websites on HPV vaccinations, data on high schoolers’ health habits, information on programs to end violence against women and girls: all began disappearing from government websites this week, as agencies scrambled to comply with President Trump’s executive order against “gender ideology.” Federal agencies and departments were given a deadline of…

If scorching heat waves, destructive storms, prolonged droughts and rising seas aren’t enough to make some folks fear the consequences of climate change, perhaps this will do the trick: The warmer it gets, the faster rats multiply in cities that already struggle to contain them. That is sure to be…

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pledged to “make America healthy again” as President Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, faced aggressive questions Wednesday from senators who were troubled by his skepticism of vaccines, embrace of debunked medical claims, financial conflicts of interest and 11th-hour changes on issues such…

Nearly two weeks after the Eaton fire forced Claire Robinson to flee her Altadena home, she returned, donning a white hazmat suit, a respirator and goggles. The brick chimneys were among the few recognizable features of the quaint three-bedroom 1940 house neighboring Farnsworth Park. Nearly everything else was reduced to…

The Reuben Lasker was about four miles off the coast of Manhattan Beach when ash began to rain upon the sea — first in delicate flurries, then in noxious clouds. The fisheries research vessel had set sail days earlier for a coastal survey. It was supposed to be a routine…

Southern California Edison is asking state regulators to make its customers cover more than $7 billion in damages it paid to the victims of two devastating wildfires in 2017 and 2018. At its meeting Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission will consider Edison’s request to pass on to its ratepayers…

A new strain of bird flu — H5N9 — has been detected in California’s Merced County at a commercial duck operation. According to the World Organization for Animal Health — an international consortium of medical, veterinary and wildlife professionals that researches and reports on animal diseases — testing of ducks…

An electric line that was repaired after the deadly Eaton wildfire caught fire last week, although emergency crews positioned nearby were able to quickly extinguish the flames. Video and photos of the Friday evening fire show flames across an electric wire connected to Southern California Edison’s distribution lines in Eaton…

The United States is ground zero for the H5N1 bird flu. Since March 2024, when the virus was first reported in a Texas dairy herd, the virus has killed one person, sickened scores more, contaminated the nation’s food supply, felled dozens of house pets, infected more than 900 dairy herds…

President Trump signed executive orders Monday asserting that the U.S. government recognizes only two sexes that are “not changeable,” and reversing Biden administration directives on LGBTQ+ rights. One of the new orders says that “male” and “female” are defined based on reproductive cells and at the point when a person…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the Food and Drug Administration a “corrupt system” that is waging “war on public health.” He has pledged to eliminate “entire departments” at the agency charged with ensuring the safety of the foods Americans eat and the medicines we take, warning the more than…

On Jan. 11, an airborne imaging spectrometer managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory flew over Los Angeles County to survey the damage from the historic fires. It captured images of charred hillsides in Angeles National Forest, devastated neighborhoods in Altadena and — just west of the Eaton fire’s burn scar…

As experts continue monitoring and surveying the environment and the nation’s food supply for H5N1 bird flu, a rash of dead cats has many officials on edge. From pet cats in Los Angeles County and Oregon to captive wild cats in Washington and Colorado, dozens of felines have died as…

The California Public Utilities Commission approved Southern California Edison’s wildfire mitigation plan Thursday, rejecting calls to delay action until more is known about what ignited the devastating Eaton fire. Investigators are now looking into whether Edison’s equipment sparked the Eaton fire, which has killed at least 17 people and destroyed…

Twenty years ago today, I watched TV coverage of a probe descending toward the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, while outside my home in Utah snow dusted a rocky mountain outcrop I’d nicknamed Titan — both after the moon and a painting of it. When the probe —…

The Los Angeles fires have forced thousands to evacuate indefinitely from their homes, often without necessary medications or medical devices. Here’s what to do if you find yourself without access to the things you need to stay on top of chronic conditions. This article is provided free of charge to…

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that the much-maligned red dye No. 3 will be banned in the United States because it has been shown to cause cancer in animals. The decision, lauded by consumer advocacy groups, comes a full 25 years after scientists at the agency determined that…

As Santa Ana wind conditions continue to stoke fears of resurgent wildfires across Los Angeles County, health officials are warning of yet another wind-borne threat: ash and dust from active fire zones and burn scars. On Tuesday, the county Department of Public Health issued a windblown dust and ash advisory…

State regulators criticized Southern California Edison for falling behind in inspecting transmission lines in areas at high risk of wildfires just months before the deadly Eaton fire, according to state documents. Utility safety officials also said the company’s visual inspections of splices in its transmission lines were sometimes failing to…

L.A. Metro has suspended fare collection on its trains and buses through Sunday as wildfires continue to ravage parts of the county, officials said Saturday. The agency said earlier this week that L.A. County Supervisor and Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn had authorized the agency to stop collecting fares across…

Amid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880. It’s the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record has been set, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson…

Even for those lucky enough to get out in time, or to live outside the evacuation zones, there has been no escape from the fires in the Los Angeles area this week. There is hardly a vantage point in the city from which flames or plumes of smoke are not…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week set maximum levels for lead in baby foods such as jarred fruits and vegetables, yogurts and dry cereal, part of an effort to cut young kids’ exposure to the toxic metal that causes developmental and neurological problems. The agency issued final guidance…

You don’t have to live close to a wildfire to be affected by its smoke. With severe winds fanning the fires in and around Pacific Palisades, the Pasadena foothills and Simi Valley, huge swaths of the Southland are contending with dangerous air quality. Wildfire smoke can irritate your eyes, nose,…

Anyone hoping for a clear path forward this year for NASA’s imperiled Mars Sample Return mission will have to wait a little longer. The agency has settled on two potential strategies for the first effort to bring rock and soil from another planet back to Earth for study, NASA Administrator…

It’s Monday morning, the start of your work week. You’ve put the finishing touches on that big report, prepared for that imminent presentation. But it’s likely that there’s one aspect of the job you’re not ready for: the marathon of sitting at your desk all day. Time to start training.…

A new report linking fluoridated drinking water to lower IQ scores in children is sure to ratchet up the debate over a practice that’s considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. The report published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics synthesizes the results of dozens of research…

Alcoholic drinks are a leading cause of cancer and should carry a warning about that risk on their labels, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday. Alcohol is a factor in nearly 100,000 newly diagnosed cancers each year and roughly 20,000 deaths from the disease, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said…

More than 100 women have filed a new lawsuit against obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Barry J. Brock and the facilities where he worked, claiming that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and other medical practices knowingly concealed his alleged sexual abuses and medical misconduct. The 107 new plaintiffs join 60 other former patients who have…

Shooting stars darting across the darkened Southern California skies from an annual meteor shower will appear strongest over the next two days. Prime viewing starts Friday morning and continuing into Saturday, according to astronomical observers. The annual Quadrantids meteor shower will hit peak visibility, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere with…

SAN FRANCISCO —  After surging during the COVID pandemic into a crushing public health emergency, drug overdose deaths in San Francisco plummeted in 2024, according to preliminary data compiled by city health officials. The chief medical examiner’s office recorded 586 fatal overdoses in San Francisco in the first 11 months of…

With the winter cold and flu season upon us, Americans should be on the lookout for another ultra-contagious virus: our most common stomach bug. The U.S. experienced the largest December norovirus surge since at least 2012, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the week…

The ads on podcasts and social media were tantalizing: over-the-counter probiotic supplements that could ward off the worst effects of a hangover if taken before drinking. As a bourbon reviewer who enjoys the flavor of spirits but has always been easily prone to hangovers, Eric Burke was intrigued. He ordered…

A former Van Nuys physician who recently surrendered his medical license following sexual harassment accusations has agreed to a $15-million federal settlement over allegations that he and fellow defendants submitted false claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Mohammad Rasekhi, his spouse and business partner, Sheila…

Just five months after giving birth to our third (and final) child in 2015, my wife experienced something odd: Her smile became crooked. Appearance didn’t matter, of course. This was just different enough to be noticeable and concerning, like that new mole you should probably have checked out. Over the…

It’s that time of year, when families and friends come together to share their holiday cheer and a few circulating pathogens. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, said people should be on the lookout for the “Big Four”: three respiratory viruses currently moving through the U.S.…

As the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe — killing wild animals, commercial livestock and even some people — scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic. But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict…

Book Review Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History By Olivia CampbellPark Row Books: 368 pages, $32.99If you buy books on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. You might have heard of Lise Meitner.…

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Wednesday as the H5N1 bird flu virus moved from the Central Valley to Southern California dairy herds, while federal officials confirmed the first U.S. case of severe illness in a hospitalized Louisiana patient — a concerning development as the virus continues to…

A longtime internist who founded a chain of Southern California clinics has surrendered his medical license after an accusation from the state medical board that he sexually assaulted three patients, two of whom worked for his clinics. Dr. Mohammad Rasekhi signed an agreement to give up his medical license last…

This summer an old high school friend of mine decided to quit drinking entirely. She didn’t want to, but she felt she had no choice. “All of a sudden my body decided that alcohol is poison,” she told me recently over a bitter grapefruit mocktail at an Italian restaurant. “I…

In an effort to improve American diets, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Thursday released a new definition of what it means for a food to qualify as “healthy.” Products like fruit-flavored yogurt, fortified white bread and sweetened energy bars will no longer be allowed to label themselves as healthy…

Groundbreaking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have understandably generated a lot of excitement, bringing hope to the hundreds of millions of people grappling with obesity. When combined with a healthier diet and exercise, these drugs, which suppress appetite, deliver an average 10% reduction in body weight that can be…

Polio came for 5-year-old Lynn Lane when she was visiting her grandmother in rural Indiana. Suddenly, her arms and legs became weak, and by the time she got to a hospital in Indianapolis, she was totally paralyzed and in respiratory failure. Lane spent the next several months in an iron…

Three men sought help at clinics or emergency rooms in Los Angeles County over a three-month period this year, each reporting severe diarrhea and a recent history of sexual contact with other men. Stool cultures revealed that all three were infected with Shigella sonnei, a strain of Shigella bacteria that…

The Biden administration said Tuesday it was offering Pacific Gas & Electric a record $15-billion loan guarantee to help the utility upgrade its transmission lines, which have been blamed in causing wildfires, and make other improvements to meet fast-rising energy use. The commitment, which still must be finalized, would help…

On a grassy hillside just east of downtown Los Angeles, a few dozen mourners gathered last week to pay respects to 1,865 people whose names they did not know — men, women and children whose ashes recently joined the remains of 100,000 others laid to rest here since 1896. The…

What a difference a fraction of an inch can make. Having one of the 33 bones in his spine out of alignment by less than half an inch apparently diminished Luigi Mangione’s quality of life to the point that his lower legs felt like they were on fire. At other…

Public health authorities are seeking to determine if a Marin County child stricken with flu could have potentially contracted the illness by drinking infected raw milk that was subject to a recall. The presumptive bird flu case was announced on Friday, in a Dec. 6 Marin County health newsletter, which…

President Trump once celebrated the COVID-19 vaccines released at the end of his first term as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind,” echoing the sentiments of mainstream medical officials who praised their rapid development as pivotal in combating the then-raging pandemic. But as his second administration takes shape, some…

Nearly a year after a wild bird infected with H5N1 avian flu presumably passed its viral baggage to a dairy cow in the Texas panhandle — which has subsequently led to the infection of more than 700 herds nationwide and sickened at least 35 dairy workers — the nation’s agriculture…

Griffith Park’s late celebrity mountain lion P-22 took the night shift to avoid hordes of hikers, bikers and dawdlers who frequented his home in the heart of Los Angeles — and it’s a pattern replicated by other pumas in the region, according to a new study. The move to a…

The apparent assassination of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk Wednesday has unleashed an extraordinary outpouring of emotion. But it’s not all horror or sadness over a 50-year-old father of two being shot dead in public by a man in a mask. Thompson’s death has inspired…

California researchers say the world may be just one genetic tweak away from human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus — a worrisome mutation that could open the door to widespread human infections and possibly even a pandemic, according to some experts. In a study published Thursday in the…

The love story of musicians Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger and Mike Einziger was fortified in a lab. After meeting through a mutual colleague in 2010, the Santa Monica-based couple’s courtship began the following year, as they were collaborating with Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer on a series of film scores. Einziger is…

It’s a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule that most Americans know little about, yet gives corporations the license to add potentially harmful ingredients to foods without regulatory oversight or public notice. For decades, the FDA’s “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, designation has allowed food makers to decide for…

After two limited recalls, all raw milk and cream from a Fresno-based dairy farm must be removed from store shelves. The cows at Raw Farm are infected with H5N1 bird flu, state officials say. The recall, which is voluntary, encompasses all milk and cream products not included in the recalls…

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court on Monday did not sound ready to sharply limit the power of the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the sale of new candy-colored vaping products aimed at teenagers. Instead, the justices, both conservative and liberal, said Congress in 2009 gave the agency the power to…

He had written more than 20 books, drew healthy audiences speaking across America and attracted coverage from the country’s top newspapers and magazines. Still, by the height of the pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he felt muzzled. Facebook and Instagram had banned posts by Children’s Health Defense, the Kennedy-founded…

The round batteries, small as buttons and shiny as coins, are prized for the energy they pack at their size. In households, they have become commonplace, powering remote controls, hearing aids, toys, electric tea lights, wristwatches, greeting cards that play music and other familiar items. But doctors warn that such…

Less than a week after California health officers confirmed a finding of bird flu virus in store-bought raw milk, state agriculture officials descended on Mark McAfee’s Raw Farm dairy “like never before” Wednesday and began collecting samples from the farm’s two herds, creamery, bulk milk tanks and trucks, according to…

California health officials announced Wednesday that another batch of raw milk from Fresno-based Raw Farm has tested positive for bird flu virus, as dairy farms throughout the state continue to struggle with a widening number of outbreaks. For the second time in roughly the span of a week, Santa Clara…

Your heart is racing, your arms are tingling and your breathing is shallow. You’re having an anxiety attack. And you’re in a public place, to boot. A crowded restaurant, say, or at the office. Not a space where you can comfortably lay on the ground and do some deep breathing…

TIPTON, Calif. —  It was a late fall morning and hundreds of cows — black and white splattered Holsteins and cappuccino-colored Jerseys — milled about a San Joaquin Valley dairy farm in the largest milk-producing state in the nation. Nearby, workers herded some of the animals onto a rotating platform within…

A cluster of workers at Ventura County berry farms have been diagnosed with a rare disease often transmitted through sick animals’ urine, according to a public health advisory distributed to local doctors by county health officials Tuesday. The bacterial infection, leptospirosis, has resulted in severe symptoms for some workers, including…

California health officials reported Tuesday that a child in Alameda County tested positive for H5 bird flu last week. The source of infection is not known — although health officials are looking into possible contact with wild birds — and the child is recovering at home with mild upper respiratory…

It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, but Stacey Lamirand’s brain hasn’t stopped churning. “I still think about the election all the time,” said the 60-year-old Bay Area resident, who wanted a Kamala Harris victory so badly that she flew to Pennsylvania and knocked on voters’…

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he plans to nominate Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon and former daytime television host, as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz, a 64-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon, has no experience running a government agency, and has been accused by many U.S. physicians…

The first case in the U.S. of a more severe mpox variant has been confirmed in a person who had recently traveled to East Africa and was treated in San Mateo County, the California Department of Public Health announced Saturday. The person diagnosed with the Clade I variant is isolating…

With President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, numerous public health leaders are voicing fears that the nation’s premier health agencies will be weakened at a time when the country faces rising threats from infectious diseases,…

As H5N1 bird flu spreads among California dairy herds and southward-migrating birds, health officials announced Friday that six more human cases of infection: five in California and one in Oregon — the state’s first. A seventh presumptive California case is awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and…

150 million years ago, Laurasia The massive neck dips, casting a curving shadow on the mossy ground. The dinosaur’s jaws close around its prize. The creature lifts its head, nearly dainty in scale, and contentedly gnaws a mouthful of ferns. It’s the late Jurassic Period in the super continent of…

A prominent neuroscientist at USC is on leave nearly a year after allegations of research misconduct cast doubt on his published work and derailed trials for an experimental stroke treatment. USC Keck School of Medicine Dean Carolyn Meltzer sent an email to faculty in the department of physiology and neuroscience…

-One of healthcare’s most fundamental tools works less reliably for people with darker skin tones. – An Oakland clinic’s lawsuit is helping to change that in California. The pulse oximeter, a device that measures the degree to which red blood cells are saturated with oxygen, is one of healthcare’s most…

Canadian health officials announced Tuesday that a teenager infected with H5N1 bird flu from an unknown source is in critical condition. According to British Columbia Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry, the child is suffering from acute respiratory distress and was hospitalized on Friday. The teen is the first presumptive case…

Australian researchers, who spent years towing seal-shaped decoys through waters infested with great white sharks, have determined that wrapping the lures in very bright lights — sort of like aquatic Christmas trees — seems to turn sharks away. That’s because, from below, sharks are accustomed to seeing the dark silhouettes…

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is preparing to lay off hundreds of employees this week, director Laurie Leshin said in a memo to staff sent Tuesday afternoon. The La Cañada Flintridge research institution will let go of approximately 325 employees across the organization on Wednesday, or roughly 5% of its total…

DeLoyce Alcorn is 92 years old — and pressing nearly four times that in weight at the gym. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Alcorn — dressed in a T-Shirt that read “Be Strong. Be Resilient. Be You.” — slid into the leg press machine, which was set at a whopping…

An 80-something patient came in for an annual visit recently and was worried that recent memory lapses might be symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. This patient, like several others in my practice, has taken cognitive tests annually for more than a decade. With each passing year, I see and hear the…

California air quality regulators late Friday approved tougher rules to encourage use of lower-carbon fuels, overriding objections that the action would lead to higher gasoline prices for motorists. On an 12-to-2 vote, the California Air Resources Board approved amendments to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, which aims…

Donald Trump’s return to the White House stands to significantly shape the health of Californians — the foods they eat, the medicines they take, the costs they face and more. Trump has said he’ll grant a prominent health role to supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made discredited claims…

More than half of Californians and nearly 75% of U.S. residents live in communities where fluoride has been added to drinking water to prevent tooth decay, an intervention hailed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as one of the 20th century’s greatest public health achievements. Yet should Donald Trump…

Shauna Bookless never imagined she’d become her own pharmacist. But after gaining more than 20 pounds during undergraduate and graduate school and feeling unhappy with her weight, the Hollywood resident found herself mixing vials in her kitchen to create her own doses of a popular weight-loss drug. “I’m playing doctor,”…

Their deaths have fueled the notion that 27 is a lethal age for musicians and other notable artists. Amy Winehouse, the iconoclastic singer-songwriter, was that age when she died of alcohol poisoning in 2011. So was grunge rocker Kurt Cobain when he died of suicide in 1994 and rock ‘n’…

A resident of a Thousand Oaks nursing home has been arrested on suspicion of killing his roommate, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said. Deputies responded at 4:40 a.m. Friday to a call from the Silverado memory care facility on Warwick Avenue about a resident who was agitated and had broken…

Two Los Angeles police officers were injured early Sunday when their patrol car flipped over after being struck by another vehicle, whose driver was arrested, officials said. The crash occurred about 2 a.m. at the intersection of Figueroa Street and Rosecrans Avenue in South L.A., the department said. The driver…

Los Angeles County health officials said they have detected H5N1 bird flu virus in wastewater collected from the A.K. Warren Water Resource Facility in Carson. The viral “hit” was detected on Oct. 28 by WastewaterSCAN, an infectious disease monitoring network run by researchers at Stanford, Emory University and Verily, Alphabet…

Whether its lead from old buildings, arsenic from contaminated food or strontium fallout from a nuclear explosion, heavy metals that enter the body pose a serious health threat. With chemical properties exceedingly similar to typical nutrients like iron and calcium, toxic metals look virtually the same to the body. So,…

Oregon state and federal officials confirmed Wednesday that H5N1 bird flu was found in a pig living in Crook County — the first such swine infection reported in the current outbreak. The strain of bird flu virus in the pig is slightly different from the one that has been plaguing…

More than 100 space researchers signed a letter urging the federal government to perform an environmental review before allowing SpaceX to continue launching thousands of satellites for its internet service, Starlink. The Federal Communications Commission has licensed Elon Musk’s company to launch nearly 12,000 satellites into space — more than…

Dozens of maternal health organizations and advocates are urging the California surgeon general to suspend the rollout of a plan aimed at reducing maternal mortality, saying that the recently announced initiative won’t effectively address the crisis and “risks exacerbating existing inequities.” In a letter shared with The Times, representatives of…

As a diabetes specialist, I’ve treated thousands of patients, some in Beverly Hills and some in East Los Angeles. My Beverly Hills patients live to become healthy 80- and 90-year-olds. I can’t remember when my last patient from this community lost their vision, had an amputation or started dialysis. Almost…

While many clinics feature glowing testimonials from satisfied customers, patient experiences with MERT run a broad gamut. The Times spoke to parents who said MERT led to positive, lasting changes for their autistic children, improving their ability to communicate, concentrate and sleep through the night. The Times also spoke to…

Deli meats, grab-and-go salads and frozen meals are staples of the modern American diet — convenient and inexpensive options that shoppers readily toss into their carts during grocery runs. But after hundreds of those products were flagged in major listeria-related recalls recently, nervous consumers have been left to scour their…

A typical large tree can suck as much as 40 kilograms of carbon dioxide out of the air over the course of a year. Now scientists at UC Berkeley say they can do the same job with less than half a pound of a fluffy yellow powder. The powder was…

Infant deaths have increased in the United States since the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade and allowed states to make abortion illegal, researchers reported Monday. The change became detectable three months after the June 2022 ruling with an elevated rate of infant mortality involving babies born with…

When Pam McClure learned she’d save nearly $4,000 on her prescription drugs next year, she said, “it sounded too good to be true.” She and her husband are both retired and live on a “very strict” budget in central North Dakota. By the end of this year, she will have…

TIPTON, Calif.  —  There’s a sickness hovering over Tulare County‘s dairy industry. On a recent 98-degree afternoon, dead cows and calves were piled up along the roadside. Thick swarms of black flies hummed and knocked against the windows of an idling car, while crows and vultures waited nearby — eyeballing…

Meat producer BrucePac is recalling nearly 12 million pounds of meat and poultry products sold at Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart, Costco, Kroger and other companies because they might be contaminated with listeria. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the sweeping recall on Oct. 9 and…

Every week, Caitlin Scuttio stops by Target and piles her cart with pureed food pouches for her 4-year-old and twin 18-month-old sons. In goes a 24-pack of unsweetened applesauce. Then a 24-pack of the fruit and veggie blend. And finally, the yogurt pouches for her oldest son’s breakfast. “He’d eat…

Perhaps you’ve heard: Menopause is having a moment. Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Drew Barrymore have begun speaking out about coping with symptoms and self-worth. Halle Berry shouted from the steps of the Capitol: “I’m in menopause, OK?!” As menopause advocates, we have long seen this “moment” as overdue,…

The nation’s COVID-19 vaccination effort is failing. Last year, only 22% of adults received the latest COVID booster, which is less than half the rate of vaccination for the flu — even though COVID is twice as deadly. Amid growing concern about the effects of long COVID and ahead of…

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Monday morning carrying a NASA probe designed to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa and search for the building blocks of life. With the Europa Clipper now on its 1.8-billion mile, 5½-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet,…

More than half of the 410 hospitals in California have at least one building that probably wouldn’t be able to operate after a major earthquake hit their region, and with many institutions claiming that they don’t have the money to meet a 2030 legal deadline for earthquake retrofits, the state…

People hospitalized for COVID-19 early in the pandemic suffered an increased risk of serious “cardiac events” such as heart attacks and strokes that was akin to people with a history of heart disease, a newly released study has found. Researchers from USC, UCLA and the Cleveland Clinic analyzed more than…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch that could disrupt communications, the power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations but also generate a nighttime light show. The category G4 watch from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center — the second such alert issued this year…

In 2015, Bill Nye was on Marine One with President Obama. The television personality and science advocate was officially there for an Earth Day event, but he took the opportunity to talk to the president about space exploration, and specifically, a mission still in its infancy at NASA’s Jet Propulsion…

Thirty-five women are suing a Beverly Hills obstetrician-gynecologist, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and other medical practices where the doctor worked, alleging decades of sexual and medical misconduct that the health facilities enabled and concealed. The lawsuit, filed late Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that Dr. Barry Brock had,…

On Tuesday morning, Princeton University professor John Hopfield and University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 for their foundational discoveries and inventions that pioneered modern artificial intelligence. Hopfield joined Caltech as faculty in 1980 and, two years later, published his seminal paper in which…

PARLIER, Calif. —  In a windowless shack on the far outskirts of Fresno, an ominious red glow illuminates a lab filled with X-ray machines, shelves of glowing boxes, a quietly humming incubator and a miniature wind tunnel. While the scene looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, its actually…

“When will I see the doctor?” Most female doctors have been asked this question many times. It feels like a slight — a failure to recognize the struggle it took to get to where they are, a fight that is far from over once a woman has her medical degree.…

As California struggles to contain an increasing number of H5N1 bird flu outbreaks at Central Valley dairy farms, veterinary experts and industry observers are voicing concern that the number of cattle deaths is far higher than anticipated. Although dairy operators had been told to expect a mortality rate of less…

San Diego County residents will have an opportunity to share their pollution concerns about the Tijuana River when officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrive later this month to conduct a health survey. This is the first time that a federal agency is investigating the potential harm…

When Nora Bruhn bought admission to the Lightning in a Bottle arts and music festival on the shores of Kern County’s Buena Vista Lake earlier this spring, her ticket never mentioned she might end up with a fungus growing in her lungs. After weeks of night sweats, “heaviness and a…

Children, teens and young adults in Southern California had been grappling with rising rates of depression and anxiety for years before the pandemic. Then COVID-19 came along and made their mental health struggles even worse. Among 1.7 million young patients who were part of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health…

A recent UC Davis study found that as Central Valley residents go about their day, they regularly breathe in pesticides, including one that has been banned in California and another whose effects on people is unclear. The study, which was conducted in 2022 with the help of Central Valley residents,…

Thomas VanCott compares his son Jake’s experience with autism to life on a tightrope. Upset the delicate balance and Jake, 18, plunges into frustration, slapping himself and twisting his neck in seemingly painful ways. Like many families with children on the autism spectrum, Jake’s parents sought treatments beyond traditional speech…

These days, there’s no surer way to start a fight than to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. And with election day drawing near, political conversations are increasingly difficult to avoid. You could muddle your way through the next two months and hope for the best. Or you…

A San Fernando Valley resident is the first person in L.A. County to die this year from West Nile virus, a mosquito-transmitted illness that can cause lethal inflammation in the brain. The L.A. County Department of Public Health reported on Thursday that the patient died from neurological illness caused by…

Coronavirus infections have come roaring back this year, prompting the Biden administration to renew one of its earliest responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: Free at-home test kits delivered via the mail. The Department of Health and Human Services is offering to mail four test kits to any household that wants…

A respiratory virus that in rare cases can cause polio-like paralysis in children is on the rise in California and across the nation, according to wastewater analyses. Enterovirus D68 was detected in 207 out of 268 samples taken from wastewater sites across the nation in the last 10 days, says…

Testifying Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee, Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said in a prepared statement that he was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Favre, 54, was testifying about welfare abuses in Mississippi and allegations that he and others used Temporary Assistance for Needy Families state…

Reports of H5N1 bird flu outbreaks at California dairy herds are continuing to rise as the nation’s largest milk producer scrambles to contain the spread. On Monday, officials reported that the number of infected dairy herds in the Central Valley had doubled over the weekend, rising from 17 to 34.…

Aging infrastructure, short-term thinking, and ambitions that far outstrip its funding are just a few of the problems threatening the future of America’s vaunted civil space agency, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In a report commissioned by Congress and released this week, experts said that…

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office will announce a new campaign Monday at Climate Week NYC to encourage 1 million Californians to take everyday actions to help combat climate change. “Every day, Californians are taking small actions that collectively are helping us create a better world for our kids and grandkids,” Newsom…

The first full weekend of September, with the Line fire 20,000 acres in size and only 3% contained, a resident of San Bernardino County described the sky as looking “exactly like a nuclear warhead had been set off.” On a basic level, this makes sense: By that point, the Line…

Joshua Meyrowitz stepped up to the stage at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood and announced himself to the crowd as “your fellow autistic,” spurring whoops and applause. “One of the hardest things as an autistic person is being able to relate to people,” the comedian said, “and as a stand-up…

For entrepreneur and philanthropist Emmet Stephenson Jr., seeing his wife and friends die from pancreatic cancer served as a wake-up call. His wife, Toni, a patient at Duarte, Calif.-based cancer center City of Hope, died at 74 after a four-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Now Emmet and his daughter Tessa…

A new analysis of genetic material gathered from a live-animal market in Wuhan in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the case that the outbreak originated there when the coronavirus jumped from infected animals to humans, scientists said. The findings, reported the journal Cell, do not identify any…

California officials have ordered bulk milk testing for dairy farms within six miles of herds infected with H5N1 bird flu, as well as for dairies that share trucks, personnel or equipment with facilities that have suffered an outbreak. The mandatory testing comes as the total number of infected herds in…

For the Green family, the memory of Oct. 1, 1994 is many things at once: the date of their greatest pain and their finest hour; a day of unspeakable loss and life-giving gifts. It is the date their 7-year-old son, Nicholas, died in an Italian hospital, two days after being…

A mind-bending hypothesis is gaining traction among scientists: The universe may be teeming with microscopic black holes the size of an atom, but with the mass of a city-sized asteroid. Created just a split second after the Big Bang, these hypothetical black holes would whip quietly through the solar system…

The object is part of the Arjuna asteroid belt. Speaking to Space.com, Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos — one of the people who discovered the mini-moon — described Arjuna as “a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that…

We all have regrets. And they come in myriad shapes and sizes. Some people stew over a minor bad decision, like an unnecessary impulse purchase. Others ruminate over major fork-in-the-road moments, like turning down a potentially exciting career opportunity. For some, regret might be slow-brewing indecision that amounts to loss,…

Since the dawn of the antibiotic age, opportunistic pathogens have evolved defenses faster than humans can develop drugs to combat them. At the same time, humans have unwittingly given the bugs an advantage through the overuse of antibiotics, allowing pathogens that survive their exposure to pass on their resistant traits.…

California’s surgeon general has unveiled an initiative to reduce maternal mortality and set a goal of halving the rate of deaths related to pregnancy and birth by December 2026. Health officials say that more than 80% of maternal deaths nationwide are preventable. California has achieved a much lower rate of…

Eight years after an independent state watchdog agency harshly criticized the state for failing to provide dental care to low-income children, California has failed to remedy the problem or fully implement the commission’s recommendations, according to a follow-up review published last week. The Little Hoover Commission found that less than…

An industrial chemical used in plastic products has been cropping up in illegal drugs from California to Maine, a sudden and puzzling shift in the drug supply that has alarmed health researchers. Its name is bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate, commonly abbreviated as BTMPS. The chemical is used in plastic for protection against…

Approximately 600 times a day, the esophagus ferries whatever is in your mouth down to your stomach. It’s usually a one-way route, but sometimes acid escapes the stomach and travels back up. That can damage the cells lining the esophagus, prompting them to grow back with genetic mistakes. About 22,370…

When Camp Hess Kramer burned down in 2018, I cried. My family had gone to the summer camp for generations. My grandma won the “best camper” award in the same dining hall where I tried soda for the first time. Overnight, it was gone. The place I grew up, once…

Growing up, I realized that children are a product of their environment, so let me tell you a little bit about mine: I grew up in Secaucus, N.J., a town called “the Jewel of the Meadowlands.” My suburban hometown exists within a large ecosystem of wetlands, the Meadowlands, through which…

The number of California dairy herds reported to have outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu has grown to eight. Officials have refused to disclose the locations of the infected herds, but have said they are in close proximity somewhere in California’s Central Valley — an 18,000-square-mile expanse that is roughly the…

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has barred a Beverly Hills obstetrician-gynecologist from practicing at its facilities after an investigation into “concerning complaints from patients,” according to a spokesperson. Dr. Barry Brock, a longtime physician who has advertised his low rate of cesarean section births, has had his hospital privileges terminated and the…

Peter Neff understands the allure of the world’s fifth-largest continent. The camera roll on his phone is brimming with videos and photos of his trips to Antarctica, where the glaciologist and climate scientist has spent days and weeks at a time collecting ice core samples. His work helps develop a…

Hidden beneath concrete at San Pedro High School, construction workers found a buried secret — thousands of marine fossils echoing Palos Verdes Peninsula’s ancient geological past. Researchers uncovered two distinct sites on campus where new buildings were under construction: a bone bed dating back 8.7 million years in the Miocene…

Roughly half of Americans subscribe to to some sort of conspiracy theory, and their fellow humans haven’t had much success coaxing them out of their rabbit holes. Perhaps they could learn a thing or two from an AI-powered chatbot. In a series of experiments, the artificial chatbot was able to…

If you feel certain your preferred candidate will lose the presidential election, that AI is coming for your job or that climate change is going to destroy humanity, then you have fallen prey to a cynical mindset, and you’re far from alone. Over the past 50 years, cynicism has spread…

California officials have identified three new outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in Central Valley dairy herds, bringing the total number of infected farms to six. Wednesday’s announcement comes as health officials in Missouri are trying to determine how a human who had no connection to dairy or poultry farming became…

Jade S. Sasser is an associate professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. Her research explores the relationships between reproductive justice, women’s health and climate change, and she’s the host of the podcast “Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question.” The following excerpt is from her…

Aru Shiney-Ajay’s awakening to the climate crisis began in her late teens. On visits to family in India, she watched in horror as loved ones endured one disaster after another: deadly floods in her parents’ home state of Kerala and record-shattering air pollution in Delhi among them. Aru Shiney-Ajay is…

Dr. Mark Ghaly is stepping down as head of the California Health and Human Services Agency after an eventful tenure that included the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday. Newsom called Ghaly “a driving force for transformative changes to make healthcare more affordable and accessible,” whose…

Wave and licensees also highlight a 2022 paper by a technician at a licensee clinic in Australia who is also a doctoral candidate at Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast. It looks at data from 28 patients at two MERT clinics in Australia whose brains showed “significant improvement” in their…

Federal officials have confirmed that three California dairy herds have suffered outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu, due most likely to the transportation of cattle and not exposure to diseased birds. Health officials announced last week that they suspected cows at three Central Valley dairies had contracted the illness, and were…

With the new COVID-19 vaccinations for the 2024–25 season arriving in California and across the nation, an important question arises: When is the best time to get the shot? The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says September and October are generally the best times for most people to…

As more species are pushed to the brink of extinction, conservationists are responding to our biodiversity crisis in new and sometimes controversial ways. One such novel approach could be described as the mammoth in the room: “de-extinction” technology that has the potential to protect and restore species on the brink…

In April, a group of Orange County parents flew to Sacramento to attend a conference hosted by Disability Voices United, an advocacy group for people with disabilities and their families. They wanted to emphasize three issues to state officials at the event: the paucity of mental health care for children…

Christine LyBurtus was aching and fearful of what might happen when her 13-year-old son returned home. Noah had been sent to Children’s Hospital of Orange County for a psychiatric hold lasting up to 72 hours after he punched at walls, flipped over a table, ripped out a chunk of his…