The holidays are a time of feasting, but according to Dr. Mark Hyman, director of the Center for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, our relationship with food is causing a health crisis. He blames ‘chronic lifestyle diseases’ -- the accumulated effects of poor diet and lack of exercise – for about 80 percent of doctor visits and $1.3 trillion in annual healthcare costs. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair talks with Hyman about his prescriptions for healthy living and using

A team at the University of Akron has developed a new type of non-toxic pigment inspired by the vibrant colors of bird feathers. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair reports that the success came as a surprise to the researchers.

A new treatment for a type of childhood cancer is the first FDA -approved use of gene-therapy. It provides an alternative for patients who have exhausted all other options. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair sits down with two cancer physicians who are hoping to bring the therapy to Akron.

The Cuyahoga River was once the symbol of America’s neglect of its natural resources. But the river that burned has bounced back and continues to improve. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair joins a group of scientists detailing the recovery of our crooked river.

Northeast Ohio has some of the best medical care available in the U.S., but parts of Cleveland also have some of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality. First Year Cleveland is a new effort to reverse those trends. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair looks at how race factors into infant mortality and what’s being done to change it.

Nearly 25 million Americans -- about 8 percent of the population -- have asthma. It effects more than one million Ohioans. While people suffering from asthma may not be aware of it, a Cleveland researcher has discovered, there's a potentially protective aspect of the disease. On this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair looks at what may be asthma’s silver lining. Dr. Joe Zein is a pulmonologist and asthma researcher at the Cleveland Clinic. He still treats patients for asthma but is spending

It’s the namesake of the mythical goddess and synonymous with feminine beauty, but the reality of the planet Venus is anything but gentle. Conditions on the surface are so harsh that all of our efforts to study it over the decades have provided only scant details. But researchers in Cleveland are trying to change that. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair looks at efforts to bring a little bit of Venus to planet Earth.

New technology can open up opportunities for people -- even if that technology happened in the Stone Age. The first Ohioans were part of a wave of expansion across North America that began around 14,000 years ago. It was made possible by an innovation in stone- tool making. In this week’s Exploradio, we visit one of Ohio’s first settlements and learn what helped make the Clovis people the great colonizers.

Bats are the only flying mammal. But that's just one of a long list of bats' unique attributes, including an unusually long life and the ability to avoid the effects of aging. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair meets local researchers searching for the fountain of youth by studying bats. A bat sees with sound. It sends out high frequency chirps, and then listens for the faint echo of a leaf, a telephone wire or a tasty mosquito. Echolocation , and the necessity of a fine set of ears

Ohio has been lucky. A disease that’s common on the East Coast hadn’t made its way to the Buckeye State…until now. Health experts say the ticks that carry Lyme disease have arrived. In this week’s Exploradio, WKSU’s Jeff St.Clair explores what to watch for when walking in tick country.