Health

Scientists in Japan have identified a virus that selectively kills males — and it happens to be inheritable, creating generation upon generation of all females.The discovery, made in caterpillars and described Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, is “robust” evidence that “more than one virus has evolved to selectively kill male insects,” said Greg Hurst, a symbiont specialist at the University of Liverpool in England who wasn’t involved in the study. That could one day help control populations of pest insects and disease vectors like mosquitoes.“I expect there are a lot more cases like this that…

With each mass shooting, Americans look to one grim indicator — the number of dead — as a measure of the destructive impact. But damage left behind by gunshot wounds reverberates among survivors and families, sending mental health disorders soaring and shifting huge burdens onto the health care system, a new analysis of private health insurance claims shows.In 2020, gunshot wounds became the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States. Though the government does not systematically track nonfatal gunshot wounds, existing evidence suggests that they are two to three times as common as fatal ones.…

At Kaneshie Polyclinic, a health center in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Accra, the capital of Ghana, there is a rule. Every patient who walks through the door — a woman in labor, a construction worker with an injury, a child with malaria — is screened for tuberculosis.This policy, a national one, is meant to address a tragic problem; two-thirds of the people in this country with tuberculosis don’t know they have it.Tuberculosis, which is preventable and curable, has reclaimed the title of the world’s leading infectious disease killer, after being supplanted from its long reign by Covid-19. But worldwide, 40…

Tyson Foods is recalling nearly 30,000 pounds of its dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets after some consumers said they found small metal pieces in them, federal officials said.The recall, which was announced on Saturday, involves 29-ounce plastic bags of the product, which is called “Fully Cooked Fun Nuggets Breaded Shaped Chicken Patties,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement.The recall affects approximately 29,819 pounds of the dinosaur-shaped nuggets, which were produced on Sept. 5 by the Arkansas-based food processing company.The bags affected have a “best if used by” date of Sept. 4, 2024, and lot…