A reader asks whether white-coat hypertension — the tendency to develop high blood pressure at the sight of a doctor's garb — is common and dangerous.

Desire G.dallorto via Wikimedia Commons The "female Viagra" has to tackle more than just a physical malfunction. Since Viagra came on the scene in the late '90s, men with sexual disfunction have been able to pop a pill and get busy to their hearts' content. For women, it's harder: There's not yet a cure for a lack of female arousal, though as many as 30 percent of women between 20 and 60 years old may suffer from some degree of hypoactive sexual-desire disorder (H.S.D.D.), a lack of lust so […]

Despite recent fears of sceptics winning public debates, they are not all powerful, but have cast a spell upon their opponentsEarlier this week, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times announced that the "climate sceptics have won". His comments echo those of former Nasa scientist James Hansen who told an audience in Edinburgh last year that the sceptics "have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources." The action needed in response to this situation was spelt out by […]

The Oklahoma tornado disaster was chilling in terms of sheer power and devastation caused. In this week’s picks, I highlight two articles about tornadoes. The first one, by Douglas Main, examines the underlying causes of such destructive tornadoes and the second one, by Adam Kucharski, looks at the challenge in forecasting seemingly unpredictable tornadoes. On [...]

National Geographic goes inside the Chelsea Flower Show, one of the world's biggest gardening and horticultural shows. Even the Queen comes.