An expert panel recommended Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration approve the first over-the-counter HIV test, a kit that could quickly return results for consumers in the privacy of their homes.

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A new report named the Potomac the nation’s most endangered river, saying it is threatened by nutrient and sediment pollution that lowers the quality of drinking water and kills marine life and will only get worse if Congress rolls back regulations in the Clean Water Act.

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In 2030, 42 percent of American adults will be obese, and about one-quarter of that group will be severely obese, a condition that shortens life and incurs large medical expenses, a new study predicts.

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The U.S. government is looking for the next AZT, Viagra and thalidomide — substances that washed out as treatments for one disease but later turned out to work well against a totally different ailment.

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A senior Environmental Protection Agency official resigned Sunday in an effort to end the furor over his remarks two years ago that the EPA should make examples of polluters the way Romans crucified people to quash rebellions.

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EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. — Kristen Hart’s search for a cold-blooded killer came to an end at a perfect hideout — thick scrub brush, dense trees and shade. She crouched with three scouts and whispered.

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Surging energy prices and a slower-than-expected economic recovery have worsened the financial outlook for Social Security compared with last year, while the picture for Medicare remains grim but essentially unchanged, according to annual forecasts released by the government Monday.

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In a study published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food that hadn’t been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see what a difference a few days could make: The participants’ levels of bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic, plunged — by two-thirds, on average — while those of the phthalate DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.

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Maryland is about to become the first state to ban the use of additives containing arsenic in chicken feed, a practice already prohibited by Canada and the European Union.

The state’s House of Delegates and Senate approved the legislation last week and placed it before Gov. Martin O’Malley on Monday. The governor could sign it soon, said Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the House legislation.

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LONDON — Two controversial research projects with the H5N1 bird flu virus haven’t produced a killer bug but have generated useful information, two researchers told scientists and bioethicists gathered here to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of manipulating deadly pathogens.

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