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March 29, 2013 Indian mothers are more likely to get more prenatal care when they're having a boy, health economists say. These small decisions about iron supplements and tetanus shots can have a profound effect on a girl's life, the researchers argue.

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March 25, 2013 Condoms have evolved little since latex ones were first manufactured in the 1920s. Bill Gates is hoping to change that. His foundation is giving $100,000 to anyone who can come up with a condom that men or women actually want to wear.

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March 22, 2013 Six billion people around the world now own cellphones, while only 4.5 billion people have a safe place to use the bathroom, the United Nations said Thursday. Improving sanitation could help prevent thousands of kids from dying each day of waterborne diseases.

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March 21, 2013 After making a comeback in the late 1980s, tuberculosis has steadily declined in the U.S. Last year alone, TB cases dropped 6 percent compared to 2011, making it the first time, the number of annual infections was below 10,000.

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March 15, 2013 French researchers confirm that the immune systems of 14 adults are apparently controlling HIV without medication. It's further evidence that early treatment may prevent the virus from establishing "reservoirs" of HIV-infected cells in the body.

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March 15, 2013 The economic expansion of the so-called "Global South" is being driven by new trade and technology partnerships, according to a United Nations report. The U.N. predicts that over the next two decades, economic and political power will shift away from Europe and North America.

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March 13, 2013 Decades after its eradication, the "breakbone fever" has become endemic again in the Florida Keys. Scientists say that Floridians infected during a recent outbreak didn't catch the virus abroad but rather got a dengue strain that's unique to Key West.

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March 12, 2013 Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope to help ease the huge demand for dialysis, but transplants have their own cost.

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On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

March 11, 2013 Kenichi Togawa was working at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan the day the earthquake and tsunami struck. His family is still living in temporary housing. For many people, the stress and isolation brought on by the disaster could pose more persistent hazards than the radiation.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

March 8, 2013 Why do people in Boston get the flu when it's cold, while people in Senegal get sick when it's hot? Humidity is a big part of the explanation. But how flu spreads in the tropics and more temperate climates appears to be different.

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March 8, 2013 Texas health officials have quarantined a Nepalese man, who illegally entered the U.S. while infected with a particularly dangerous type of tuberculosis. He traveled through 13 countries, potentially exposing hundreds of people around the world to the pathogen.

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March 5, 2013 Researchers report that the U.S. ranks among the top countries at treating cancers of the brain, colon and breast. But it still lags behind most of Western Europe when it comes to drug abuse, heart disease and kidney problems.

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March 1, 2013 Robert Lustig, a physician and anti-sugar crusader, found in a new study that countries where people have easy access to sugar are more likely to see a rise in diabetes. But skeptics say that sugar's not the only culprit.

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