Health Sciences

Evolution does not operate with a goal in mind; it does not have foresight. But organisms that have a greater capacity to evolve may fare better in rapidly changing environments. This raises the question: does evolution favor characteristics that increase a species’ ability to evolve?

A father’s cocaine use may make his sons less sensitive to the drug and thereby more likely to resist addictive behaviors, suggests new findings from an animal study presented by Penn Medicine researchers at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Pregnant women may transmit the damaging effects of stress to their unborn child by way of the bacteria in their vagina and through the placenta, suggest new findings from two animal studies presented by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Two specific genetic variations in people of African descent are responsible for persistent atopic dermatitis (AD), an itchy, inflammatory form of the skin disorder eczema.

A large study co-led by Penn Medicine published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine found that African Americans with the APOL1 gene variant experience faster progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and have a significantly increased risk of kidney failure, regardless of their diabetes status.

The Arthritis Foundation recently presented the Sir John Charnley, MD, Award to L. Scott Levin, MD, FACS, chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, the Paul B.

It’s no coincidence that the expression “to leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth” has a double meaning; people often have strong negative reactions to bitter substances, which, though found in healthful foods like vegetables, can also signify toxicity. For this reason, the ability to sense bitterness likely played an important role in human evolution.

Michael A.

Men taking testosterone therapy had a 29 percent greater risk of death, heart attack and stroke according to a study of a "real world" population of men.

For years, scientists have observed that tumor cells from certain breast cancer patients with aggressive forms of the disease contained low levels of mitochondrial DNA. But, until recently, no one was able to explain how this characteristic influenced disease progression.