DNA barcoding has exposed some infamous cases of food fraud, like cheap catfish sold as pricey grouper and expensive "sheep's milk" cheese that was really made from cow's milk.

But can it tell if a pill touted as an energy-booster contains ginseng or is just a mix of rice powder and pine?

An Indian "woman" who discovered she had mostly male chromosomes has given birth to healthy twins after intensive treatment in what doctors said Monday was the "rarest of rare cases".

The 32-year-old had an intersex condition in which she had the physical appearance of a woman but had more than 95 percent XY chromosomes, fertility specialist Sunil Jindal told Agence France Presse.

Colorado lawmakers rejected a proposal to give dying patients the option to seek doctors' help ending their lives, concluding a long day of emotional testimony from more than 100 people.

For one lawmaker who voted no, the issue was personal. Tearfully telling her colleagues she was a cancer survivor, Democratic Rep. Dianne Primavera recalled how a doctor told her she wouldn't live more than five years.

Measles is in the news, but it's just one of more than a dozen preventable — and sometimes forgotten — diseases targeted by vaccines for children.

Most immunizations start in infancy and some include multiple doses over several months or years. The government recommends 13 vaccines against 16 diseases, through age 18.

It is universally acknowledged that the New York subway is grubby. What may come as a shock is that it contains DNA fragments linked to anthrax and bubonic plague.

Researchers from Cornell University have provided the first map of the subway's microbes, identifying more than 1,688 types of bacteria and one station that even supports a "marine ecosystem."

Canada's supreme court on Friday unanimously struck down a ban on doctor-assisted suicide for mentally competent adults suffering from an incurable disease, reversing a decision on the books since 1993.

The ruling was, however, suspended for one year to allow lawmakers an opportunity to enact new rules surrounding the divisive issue.

As vaccine skeptics fight laws that would force more parents to inoculate their kids, they are finding unexpected allies in conservative Republicans.

Though the stereotype of a vaccine skeptic is a coastal, back-to-the-land type, it's generally been Democratic-controlled states that have tightened vaccination laws. This week, Democrats in two of those states — California, where a measles outbreak was traced to Disneyland, and Washington state — proposed eliminating laws that allow parents to opt out of vaccination for personal reasons.

Thousands of travelers to the Caribbean and nearby regions are coming home with an unwanted souvenir: a mosquito-borne virus that recently settled there.

The virus, called chikungunya (chih-kihn-GOON'-yuh), causes severe, often disabling joint pain, and few U.S. doctors are prepared to recognize its signs.

For the first time since the west African Ebola outbreak began over a year ago, a clinical trial with a candidate treatment has yielded "encouraging" results, researchers announced Thursday.

The trial with 80 patients in Guinea resulted in fewer deaths and faster recovery rates, the French government and medical research agency Inserm said of tests with the Japanese-manufactured anti-viral drug favipiravir.

Tens of millions of U.S. patients' information such as Social Security numbers have been stolen from Anthem, the company said Wednesday, in the worst hacking revealed by a health insurer to date.

"Cyber attackers executed a very sophisticated attack to gain unauthorized access to one of Anthem’s IT systems and have obtained personal information relating to consumers and Anthem employees who are currently covered, or who have received coverage in the past," a statement from the second-largest U.S. health insurer said.