Health & Science Audio/Video - NPR

Osteoarthritis, the sometimes painful degeneration of tissue surrounding joints, is common in the aging population. The earlier it's caught, the easier osteoarthritis is to treat.

Swine flu has been out of the headlines lately, but it's still making people sick in more than 100 countries. In fact, the World Health Organization recently named it the first official pandemic since 1968.

Researcher Eric Johnson recently revealed that charcoal grills leave a much larger carbon footprint than their gas-powered counterparts. On what may be the busiest grilling day of the year, Guy Raz speaks with Johnson about his study.

In the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a cemetery installed more than 450 solar panels on top of the mausoleums.

This week, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration raised a red flag about a very popular and very effective painkiller — acetaminophen. The panel of experts has recommended lowering levels of acetaminophen in prescription and over-the-counter drugs because of concerns about liver damage.

Food Inc., a documentary film about the modern agricultural industry, is a hit with big-city movie reviewers, small organic farmers and vegetarians. But ordinary farmers — the people who grow the lion's share of what America eats — have largely been left out of the mainstream media debate over the film.

Weekend Edition math guy Keith Devlin graded the body mass index, a popular measure of determining healthy body weight, and failed it on 10 grounds.

Reporting in Nature Geoscience, two coastal scientists write that rising sea levels, combined with slow Mississippi Delta growth, could drown the Louisiana coast by 2100. Delta expert Ivor van Heerden, who is not involved with the research, discusses the findings.

Why do some fireworks shoot golden flaming balls while others produce green sparks? It's just chemistry. Bassam Shakhashiri, chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains the science of fireworks.

Dinosaur bones are pretty rare ... but even more unusual is dinosaur skin. Paleontologists working in North Dakota have unearthed the remains of a hadrosaur with much of its fossilized skin still intact. They hope it will offer insights into how these creatures lived, and what they really looked like.

The deaths of Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith focused attention on prescription pain killers. Michael Jackson, too, may have been taking pain medication. Doctors walk a fine line in treating patients who are seeking relief from chronic pain.

For years, oil production has been largely banned in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. In large part, that's because of concerns that a spill could devastate the state's tourism industry. But now, some elected officials seem willing to take another look at offshore drilling after years of opposition.

A new study finds that when Medicare expanded its prescription drug coverage, people did spend more on drugs. However, those who had little to no drug coverage beforehand reduced what they spent on going to doctors and hospitals.

Three new genetic studies are providing some tantalizing hints about what causes schizophrenia.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel wants to reduce the public's exposure to the potent painkiller.

An FDA advisory panel yesterday warned about the risk of acetaminophen, a painkiller in Tylenol, Nyquil and other drugs. The panel also called for a ban on Vicodin and Percocet, two drugs that combine acetaminophen with narcotics.

As health care costs have soared, many physicians have struggled to manage the business end of health care and provide quality care for their patients. Two doctors, each with more than 30 years of experience, talk with NPR about the changes they've seen in health care, and where the system might be headed.

Only a few universities in the world have facilities devoted to studying human bodies as they decompose. Texas State University's Forensic Anthropology Research Facility is the newest. Students there learn to recover and study human bones.

The Food and Drug Administration's panel voted 21-16 to lower the current maximum dose of nonprescription acetaminophen, which is 4 grams, or eight pills per day. Taking more than that can cause potentially fatal liver damage.

The National Transportation Safety Board isn't able to enforce its own recommendations, but the agency's acting chairman says it's better that way. He says it helps the NTSB focus solely on safety when investigating hundreds of airplane crashes, train wrecks and other accidents each year.

Voters in cash-strapped Oakland, Calif., will soon decide whether to approve a 15-fold increase in the taxes imposed on medical marijuana dispensaries. Dispensary owners support the measure because they see it as a way of legitimizing their businesses.

As Senate and House committees negotiate a potential new health care system, the idea of insurance co-ops is gaining ground as an alternative to a government-run plan. The HealthPartners co-op in Minneapolis provides some insight into the ability of these plans to provide low-cost, high-quality care.

Analysis of flight destinations of passengers departing from Mexico in March and April show that air travel was key in virus transmission across the globe, according to new research.

Health officials have confirmed a case of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, the leading pharmaceutical weapon against the new virus.

With such a high-stakes, high-stress lifestyle, many journalists return from war zones with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Anthony Feinstein is one of those working to help them overcome the emotional aftereffects of covering conflict.

When Alzheimer's disease leads to dementia, it can also trigger a desire to wander. And that's when the trouble begins. Estimates suggest about 50 percent of dementia patients who wander will suffer serious injury or death if they are not found within 24 hours.

Smoking is such a well-known cause of lung cancer that many don't realize thousands who never smoked get the diagnosis. The great majority are women. Recent research shows it's really a different disease than smoking-related lung cancer. But those with the diagnosis say they suffer the same stigma.

While opponents of the overhaul proposals currently under consideration warn of long waits for care or draconian cuts in payments to doctors and hospitals, some experts say slowing the growth of health spending doesn't have to hurt. "You can deliver high-quality care for far fewer resources if you organize your processes right," says one expert.

Breathing is something we take for granted. But with busy and stressful lifestyles, we can develop habits that interfere with the natural rhythm of the breath. Breathing techniques can help us slow down our breath to emulate the full, deep breaths of sleeping babies.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed landmark climate legislation Friday night, but the details in the bill are vast and complex. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tells NPR's Guy Raz about his understanding of the bill.

The U.S. House voted 219-212 for a sweeping bill to combat global warming. It would put gradually stricter caps on the total national output of heat-trapping gases, based on a system of permits that can be bought and sold.

Meet the V-Bat: it's about 70 pounds, eight feet tall, equipped with computers and flies without a pilot. Engineer Stephen Morris, the president and CEO of MLB Co., describes how the plane works and what it might be good for.

From sci-fi to documentaries, good science films tell the human story behind scientific ideas. Which films get the science right, and which don't? Physicist and movie critic Sidney Perkowitz runs through some of this summer's top science flicks.

Salty ice grains inside in Saturn's outer ring point to a possible underground ocean on the moon Enceladus.

A hospital disclosed this week that the computer maker's CEO had a liver transplant because he had "end-stage liver disease" and was the sickest patient on the list, raising questions about whether the company should have disclosed more about his condition to investors.

A California think tank says global warming will gain more buy-in if it is viewed as an economic opportunity rather than a problem to be solved.

According to the National Cancer Institute, the number of people who have developed melanoma has more than doubled over the past 30 years. Dermatologist Darrell Rigel explains the sun's effects on the skin, what "SPF" means and why skin cancer rates are going up.

Archaeologists have unearthed the world's oldest musical instruments: flutes. These vulture-bone flutes no doubt helped warm our ancestors' spirits as they pushed north into Europe's hostile Ice Age conditions.

In 2001, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology began conducting autopsies on all slain service men and women. Captain Craig T. Mallak describes how the physical (and sometimes virtual) autopsies of soldiers have assisted in the design of body armor, helmets and vehicle shields.