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The work of a group of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin revolves around a central question: "Why can drugs hijack the brain to such an extent that people ruin their lives, lose everything they have simply to get more of the drug?" That's the question posed by R. Adron Harris, an alcoholism researcher and the director of the Waggoner Center for Addiction and Alcohol Abuse. "That's part of the fascination," Harris said of addiction research.... Read more of this story >

What Moves You?: Our lifestyles are killing us--and costing us--with sedentary habits being one of the biggest contributors. As epidemiologist and physical activity expert Dr. Bill Kohl puts it, we've engineered physical activity right out of our lives, and that's not natural. Read more of this story >

To Cure What Ails You To Cure What Ails You: A 43-year-old patient with well-controlled blood pressure replaced her prescriptions with a cheaper herbal treatment, a liquid containing an extract from a small fruit-bearing tree known as zapote blanco. Four months later, she ended up in an El Paso emergency room with stage IV hypertension. This is just one of the cases that University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy experts follow as the economy sours and more and more people turn to over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and alternative medicines such as herbals to treat their illnesses--sometimes putting their health at risk.

Don't Even Think About It Don't Even Think About It: Former baseball player Ray Knight said, 'Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary' and very succinctly summed up about half of the tenets of sport psychology. Much-loved Longhorn and coaching legend Darrell Royal summed up the other half when he stated, 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.'

Bouncing Back Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center sees, treats and studies about 80,000 adult and pediatric patients a year. If you ask a doctor there how most patients handle the battle with cancer, you'll find that it's a little like asking how most people handle marriage or getting an MBA.

A Dignified Death After 30 years in nursing, Debbie Volker has learned if there's one thing people want to do on their own terms, it's die. She tells the story of a weakened, dying woman who just wanted to have her Christmas tree decorated. The woman hung a few ornaments each day, succumbing to cancer a few days before Christmas. But the tree was done. Another patient's request was to be transported by air from Houston to West Texas so he could see his cattle one last time.