An estimated 70% of primary care physicians reported in a survey that they would still prescribe antibiotics to treat asymptomatic infections based solely on a positive urine specimen. This is despite long-held medical guidelines recommending against this practice, according to a new study published Friday in JAMA Network Open, which was led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers.
Since 2005, medical organizations have been advocating against the routine use of antibiotics to treat...
A U.S. woman has fatally shot a man who opened fire on a crowd of people with a semi-automatic rifle in Charleston, West Virginia, the BBC reports.
Dennis Butler, a 37-year-old with an extensive criminal history, was killed after he targeted a group of around 40 people attending a birthday party.
Police spokesman Tony Hazelett said the woman's quick reaction saved lives.
It comes amid a national debate over guns after a school shooting in Texas.
Butler had...
A Palestinian investigation has concluded that Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Aqla was intentionally shot dead by an Israeli soldier.
Announcing the findings, the Palestinian attorney general said "the only shooting was by the occupation forces, with the aim of killing."
The Israeli defence minister rejected the report, calling it "a blatant lie."
Israel's army is carrying out its own investigation, and has said Palestinian militants might have shot Abu Aqla.
There was widespread outrage when the 51-year-old...
Twitter in the U.S. must pay a $150-million fine after law enforcement officials accused it of illegally using users' data to help sell targeted ads.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice say Twitter violated an agreement it had with regulators, court documents showed.
Twitter had vowed to not give personal information like phone numbers and email addresses to advertisers. Federal investigators say the social media company broke those rules.
Twitter was fined £400,000 in...
Having paid a ransom three times to secure the freedom of his loved ones, Nigerian businessman Lawal Ado is not impressed by moves to outlaw payments to kidnappers.
A controversial bill to criminalize ransom payments is the latest attempt to curb the country's spiralling and lucrative kidnapping industry.
It proposes a jail sentence of up to 15 years for anyone who pays a ransom.
Ado said his two daughters were travelling in a police convoy along the...
In a study published today in the journal Science, a team from Cardiff University has been able to pinpoint how the tilting and wobbling of the Earth as it orbits the Sun has influenced the melting of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2 million years or so.
Scientists have long been aware that the waxing and waning of massive Northern Hemisphere ice sheets result from changes in the geometry of Earth's orbit...
Longer breastfeeding duration is associated with improved cognitive scores at ages 5 through 14, even after controlling for socioeconomic position and maternal cognitive ability, according to a study published this week in PLoS ONE by Reneé Pereyra-Elías, Maria Quigley, and Claire Carson of the University of Oxford, U.K.
Previous studies have found an association between breastfeeding and standardized intelligence test scores. However, a causal relationship is still debated. Improved cognitive outcomes could be explained by other characteristics – such as socioeconomics and maternal intelligence...
North Korea fired three ballistic missiles early on Wednesday morning, South Korea's military has said.
Authorities in Seoul said the missiles were fired in the space of less than an hour from the Sunan area in Pyongyang.
It comes just a day after U.S. President Joe Biden left the region, following a trip that saw him vowing to bolster measures to deter North Korea.
North Korea has been test-firing a flurry of ballistic missiles since the beginning...
More than one-third of the world's population lives in drylands that experience significant water shortages. Scientists and engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a solution that could help people in these areas access clean drinking water.
The team developed a low-cost gel film made of abundant materials that can pull water from the air in even the driest climates. The materials that facilitate this reaction cost a mere $2 per kilogram,...
Iran's president has promised to take revenge after a colonel in the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) was shot dead in Tehran on Sunday, the BBC reports.
Two gunmen on a motorbike opened fire at Sayad Khodai as he sat in a car outside his home, state media reported.
Col Khodai was a member of the elite Quds Force, the IRGC's shadowy overseas operations arm, they said.
President Ebrahim Raisi blamed "the hands of global arrogance" –...
