Medicine

Los Baños, Philippines – The important role, and impact, of women in rice research has been highlighted with the awarding of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science awards for 2007

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and AstraZeneca are delighted to announce the launch of Nature China (www.naturechina.com), a new web based publication promoting the best scientific research published in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Summaries of other newsworthy stories include Ecology: Bacteria get into films and Thermodynamics: Maxwell's demon reincarnated?

Each day in the United States, as many as 87 to 103 babies are born with alcohol related defects; annually, an estimated $75 million to $9.7 billion is spent on the care of these infants. The consumption of alcohol during pregnancy places the fetus at risk of developing FASD

The influenza virus that killed about 50 million people worldwide around 90 years ago is also lethal in nonhuman primates, a study in this week's Nature reports. The results confirm that it was the virulence, associated with the virus itself, that made it so efficient in claiming young adult lives.

An unexpected link has been spotted between the Asian monsoon and a recently discovered oscillating pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean. Other newsworthy papers from Nature include Health studies - new for old and Magnetic make-over

A study on the memory of a group of Filipinos shows that a deeper level of processing, or semantic processing, in a person’s memory has a significant effect on explicit memory or the intentional recollection of past events or experiences.

Toluene, a commonly abused toxic compound, is shown to stimulate dopamine release in specific regions of the rat brain known as drug reward pathways, according to research published online in Neuropsychopharmacology this week.

Join journalists and science communicators from around the world when we meet in Melbourne, Australia from 16 to 20 April 2007 to discuss the big issues facing science journalism.

If properly exploited with the modern tools of science, the developing countries can increase their foreign exchange considerably from exports of products from medicinal plants and can also provide modern healthcare to the entire section of the vast rural population of these countries.

Recognizing the huge advances in experimental treatments for spinal cord injury, four papers to be published online this week in the journal Spinal Cord address the need for a principled set of guidelines for clinical trials in patients with spinal damage.

Has the promise of islet transplantation to treat diabetes been fully realised? Not yet, according to a Viewpoint article to be published in the diabetes-themed January issue of Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology & Metabolism, in which Piotr Witkowski and Kevan Herold discuss current practice and conclude that the procedure is far from perfect

The Tokyo University of Science signed an Academic Cooperation Agreement with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to proceed research collaboration in various fields.

The obstacles facing the development of genetics-based personalized medicine are described online this week in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Sandra Soo-Jin Lee highlights the problematic use of race and ethnicity as classification tools for genetically distinct populations.

An anonymous online poll of nearly 1700 researchers has revealed intriguing insights into scientists’ views on the use of animals in research.

For the first time, researchers in Laos have published a study on the causes of bacteraemia, or blood infections caused by invasive bacteria, in the local population. The study has major healthcare implications for Laos, one of the world's poorest nations.

The biological role of a potassium channel in a pathogen that colonizes the stomach is characterized in a study to be published online this week in The EMBO Journal.

New molecular evidence, published online by Nature this week, sheds significant doubt on the charges against six medical workers facing the death penalty in Libya. They are charged with deliberately contaminating more than 400 children with HIV in 1998.

As the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit in Mae Sot, Thailand, celebrates its twentieth anniversary, Prof Francois Nosten reflects on the success of the unit, based amongst the region's refugee camps.

A detailed analysis of Neanderthal DNA provides a unique insight into the genetic changes that accompanied the transition from early hominid to modern man. The study, reported in this week’s Nature, paves the way for a Neanderthal genome-sequencing effort.

Richard Mukabana has collected empirical data that dispels the myth that bush clearing can control mosquitoes and has assembled crucial evidence that provides a basis for amending a policy that is not practical or effective in tropical Africa.

The eye can provide a very reliable way of diagnosing cerebral malaria, researchers in Malawi have shown. By looking at the changes to the retina, doctors are able to determine whether an unconscious child is suffering from this severe form of malaria or another, unrelated illness, leading to the most appropriate treatment.

More than one hundred Nobel laureates have written to Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi to express their concern over the death-penalty case of 5 Bulgarian nurses, and a Palestinian doctor, accused of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV in 1998.

The hepatitis C virus infection is estimated to affect 170 million people around the world. The researchers aim was to analyse if the new induction therapy with twice-daily IFN-ß is better than once a day CIFN therapy for a period of 6-months for chronic hepatitis C.

A research group headed by Takashi Tsuji of the Tokyo University of Science's Tissue Engineering Research Center identified mechanisms behind outbreaks of adult T-cell leukemia.

Should willing individuals be allowed to sell their kidneys? Yes, according to a Viewpoint article in Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology, which argues that failure to regulate kidney sales could be unethical. Abdallah S Daar asserts that the traditional moral arguments against payment for organs are difficult to sustain under close scrutiny.

The Asia Pacific Conference on Plant Tissue Culture and Agribiotechnology (APaCPA) 2007 will be a comprehensive professional platform to promote research in all aspects of basic and applied biotechnology, especially in the areas of plant tissue culture and agribiotechnology.

As more people look to weight loss surgery to address their expanding waist lines, new research suggests that the best way to drop a few dress sizes is to opt for the mini - as in mini-gastric bypass surgery.

LONDON – The International Journal of Surgery proudly announces the launch of its new open access website www.theijs.com.

Research published in the open-access journal BMC Urology shows that early recanalization ― the most frequent cause of vasectomy failure ― is more common than previously thought. It also confirms that certain vasectomy techniques are associated with lower risk of recanalization, and that wider use of these could reduce vasectomy failure rates.