Synthetic marijuana, which is sold openly in shops and gives smokers a high, was banned Thursday across New York after being linked to serious health risks.

It will be no more "Mr Nice Guy," or "Smiley Dog," "Spice," "Galaxy Gold" or any other brands of the fake pot, which until now had been sold across the counter in convenience stores and tobacco shops.

At 18 months, Cristina Astacio spoke only a few words, wouldn't respond to her name and shunned other kids in her day care group. Last October, her worried parents found out why.

She has a mild form of autism, a diagnosis being given to more U.S. children than ever before, largely because of more awareness and better diagnosis.

Medical student Gregory Shumer studied the electronic health record and scooted his laptop closer to the diabetic grandfather sitting on his exam table. "You can see," he pointed at the screen — weight, blood sugar and cholesterol are too high and rising.

The man didn't reveal he was too nearsighted to see those numbers, but he'd quietly volunteered that he'd been ignoring his own health after his wife's death. The future-Dr. Shumer looked away from the computer for a sympathetic conversation — exactly the point of Georgetown University's novel training program.

Half of all cancers could be prevented if people just adopted healthier behaviors, U.S. scientists argued on Wednesday.

Smoking is blamed for a third of all U.S. cancer cases and being overweight leads to another 20 percent of the deadly burden that costs the United States some $226 billion per year in health care expenses and lost productivity.

Celebrity appeals for British men to check their testicles to detect early signs of cancer are a waste of time and possibly harmful, an opinion piece published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says.

Singer Robbie Williams and the Leicester Tigers rugby team are among those who have lent their names to a campaign for men to be "testicle aware," just as women are encouraged to look for dangerous lumps in their breasts.

Nearly 100,000 head of cattle are believed to have been struck by foot-and-mouth disease in Egypt, where a major new outbreak is threatening the entire region, veterinary sources warned on Tuesday.

Essam Abdel Shakur, the head of Egypt's central quarantine service, said 93,734 head of cattle are believed to have been hit by the disease since February, of which 9,022 had died.

A U.S. man who lost his lips, nose and teeth in a 1997 gun accident has received the most extensive face transplant to date, according to doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Richard Lee Norris, 37, had undergone several life-saving and reconstructive surgeries after the accident but had limited use of his mouth and, before the surgery, appeared as though his lower face and nose had been mashed in.

Two young Chinese women undergoing sex-change surgery at a Shanghai hospital are hoping to be the first twins in the country to change their gender, a state-backed newspaper said Wednesday.

The 25-year-old sisters from the southwestern province of Yunnan have already undergone preliminary surgery at a military hospital in the commercial hub, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Sao Paulo on Tuesday inaugurated a multipurpose aid center to provide care for hundreds of drug users and street squatters two months after police shut down a thriving downtown crack cocaine market.

A little more than two years before Brazil's largest city is due to host the opening game of the 2014 World Cup, authorities made good on a promise to assist a large street population in so-called "Cracolandia," a 10-block central area of dilapidated buildings.

A new kind of blood thinner that comes in a pill form and is made by German drug giant Bayer works as well as injection therapy to ward off blood clots in the lungs, said a study on Monday.

Xarelto, or rivaroxaban, was tested in an international phase III clinical trial as a treatment to treat or prevent a recurrence of venous thromboembolism, the third most common kind of cardiovascular disease, which can strike the legs or the lungs.