UNICEF says there are "no longer words to describe children's suffering," after airstrikes and shelling in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, where regime forces appear to be preparing for an imminent ground assault.

Why does drinking alcohol boost your risk of cancer? By damaging the DNA in your stem cells, a new study suggests. And if your face flushes red after you sip half a bottle of beer, like many Asians, you could be getting way more DNA damage from a night of drinking than other people. The British study found that mice exposed to a dose of alcohol roughly equivalent to a person drinking four or five

Like most parents, Andrea Thompson works hard to make sure her toddler eats nutritious foods. The Toronto mother has been a vegan for four years and thinks carefully about the food she gives her two-year-old daughter, Everest Frenke. Sometimes she adds flax oil, peanut butter or hemp seeds to soy milk to ensure her daughter is getting important nutrients. "The soy milk I give her is fortified," Th

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In the first ruling of its kind, a U.S. federal judge declared Monday that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' telephone records is likely to violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on unreasonable search. The program probably isn't effective in fighting terrorism either, the judge said in a lengthy opinion filled with blistering criticism. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Le

The Vatican is ready to open a discussion about whether Catholic priests should be required to remain celibate, the Vatican's newly appointed secretary of state said in an interview with a Venezuelan newspaper. "Celibacy is not an institution but look, it is also true that you can discuss [it] because as you say this is not a dogma, a dogma of the church," Archbishop Pietro Parolin said during an

Neuroscience is the new black, when it comes to fashion in scientific research. "The gene was the central issue in biology in 20th century," Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, neuroscientist at Columbia University said in an interview in Toronto recently. "The mind is the essential issue for biology in the 21st century." "And certainly if you think of public health consequences, the diseases, pain, s

The UN Security Council is meeting tonight to consider an Egyptian request for an emergency meeting on Israel's military action in Gaza. The closed-door meeting comes in response to a letter from Egyptian Ambassador Muutaz Khalil. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released statements saying he had spoken to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi about "the worrisome escalation of violence in southern Israel

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ called for European governments to sue Roche. "I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu. Last year, Tam

Security forces loyal to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi unleashed heavy gunfire Sunday on thousands marching in the rebellious eastern city of Benghazi, cutting down mourners trying to bury victims. More than 200 people in Libya have been killed in the fiercest crackdown yet since uprisings began in parts of the Arab world. The Libyan leadership was defiant but admitted mistakes early Monday, even as pro