By DAVID TEMPLETON, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Obesity -- even a few extra pounds -- already is a known cause of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Now there's evidence that excess weight shrinks the brains of elderly people, making them potentially more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease, dementia and cognitive decline.

The Atlantic Ocean has experienced the highest level of hurricane activity since the medieval era, circa 1000 A.D., when cyclone activity might have been even more intense.

In people who have diabetes, the body's immune system attacks its own insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.
And once those beta cells are destroyed, they generally will not replenish themselves sufficiently, even if the autoimmune response is stymied.

When it came to building his house, David Moorehead drew advice from prehistory, then mixed in futuristic ideas to produce a structure very much in the present.
The result is a house for the ages.

A University of Pittsburgh study links bacterial vaginosis in pregnant women to a deficiency of vitamin D.

The cure was so dramatic it surprised even the researchers.
They had injected human adult stem cells into the corneas of mice and, in due time, the scarring and cloudiness that cause corneal blindness completely disappeared.
But the results were more than met the eye.

A Pittsburgh robotics company is making future plans for robots to build NASA's first lunar launch pad and landing site.
Astrobotic Technology Inc. -- a company led by renowned Carnegie Mellon University roboticist William "Red" Whittaker -- is making plans to use robots to build a moon pad at one of the moon's poles. The pad is scheduled for completion in 2020.

Successful separation of twins, conjoined from the breastbone to the groin, has occurred only 20 times in the world and never before at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

An 11th-hour rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is stirring national controversy by allowing people who provide reproductive health services to refuse information or procedures that violate their conscience.