Caring for Horses Could Help Veterans Battling PTSD

A cavalry of sorts can come to the rescue of combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says.

Combat veterans who regularly care for horses experience an easing of their PTSD symptoms, as well as an overall improved mental outlook, researchers found.

Focusing on a horse’s welfare can help ...

Endurance Exercise Can Get Rid of Body Fat, Even Without Weight Loss

Heavy-duty endurance exercise can cause body fat levels to drop without any accompanying weight loss, a new small-scale study indicates.

A group of eleven middle-aged men who cycled 710 miles in seven days lost only about 1% of their total weight, because they ate and drank enough to offset the calorie burn.

But they lost over 9% of ...

Dad's Epilepsy Med Use Won't Harm His Kids: Study

Would-be dads don’t have to worry that taking the epilepsy drug valproate will result in children with birth defects, a new review concludes.

Valproate, an anti-seizure drug, is known to cause birth defects and developmental disorders when taken by pregnant women.

But the drug does not appear to have the same impact on the fetu...

U.S. Wastewater Tests Show Bird Flu Virus Limited to Areas With Farm Animals

An extensive look at wastewater samples taken across the United States from May to July found traces of the H5N1 bird flu popping up -- but only in areas populated by farm animals.

The avian flu virus has been widespread in U.S. poultry as well as herds of dairy cows, raising alarms that the virus might somehow mutate and spread between pe...

New Data Supports Animal Market Origins for COVID Pandemic

The Hunan Seafood Wholesale wet market in Wuhan, China, has long been considered the most likely source of the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

That theory is now supported by a new study analyzing more than 800 samples collected in and around the market in January 2020 as the pandemic began.

Those samples show that ani...

Breastfeeding Crucial to a Healthy Infant Microbiome, Lowering Asthma Risk

Breastfeeding through the first year of infants' lives can lower their risk of asthma by colonizing their bodies with a healthy mix of microbes, a new study finds.

Results show that breastfeeding beyond three months supported the gradual maturation of a baby’s gut microbiome, researchers reported Sept. 19 in the journal Cell...