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In research published this week in PLoS Medicine, Susan Huang and colleagues describe the use of a novel automated cluster detection tool, WHONET-SaTScan, made by integrating two freely available software packages, to identify hospital infection clusters. After applying the software to microbiology data from patients admitted to a 750-bed academic medical center in the US across four years (2002-2006), the authors found that the tool identified a number of hospital clusters that had not been detected by routine methods.

In the final article in a six part series on treating mental health problems in resource-poor settings, Alan Flisher, from the University of Cape Town, and colleagues present "packages of care" for treating Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in low- and middle-income countries.

The genome of the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum), sequenced by the International Aphid Genomics Consortium, is published this week in the online open-access journal PLoS Biology. Scientists from more than 10 nations took part in the sequencing and analysis of the genome, whose publication in PLoS Biology is accompanied by related papers appearing in PLoS Genetics, Genome Biology, and a special issue of Insect Molecular Biology.

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 23, 2010) – Aphids could be considered the "mosquitoes" of the plant world, depending on the "blood" of plants to survive. They live in symbiosis with bacteria that pass from one generation to the next, producing essential amino acids. Aphids with the same genotype can be wingless or winged. In different seasons, they develop as asexual females who produce offspring with identical genes through parthenogenesis. When temperatures drop, they can give birth to males who then fertilize the eggs laid by females.

Pea aphids, expert survivors of the insect world, appear to lack major biological defenses, according to the first genetic analysis of their immune system.

"It's surprising," says Emory biologist Nicole Gerardo, who led the study, published this week in Genome Biology. "Aphids have some components of an immune system, but they are missing the genes that we thought were critical to insect immunity."

British Columbia, Canada: DNA recovered from ancient caribou bones reveals a possible link between several small unique caribou herds and a massive volcanic eruption that blanketed much of the Alaskan Yukon territory in a thick layer of ash 1,000 years ago, reports research published today in Molecular Ecology.

It's just part of the story being read from ancient caribou remains by an international team of scientists from the U.S., U.K. and Canada who have been studying the history of this iconic and fragile Canadian species.

February 23, 2010 – Melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, afflicts more than 50,000 people in the United States annually and the incidence rate continues to rise. In a study published online in Genome Research (www.genome.org), scientists have delved deeper than ever before into the RNA world of the melanoma tumor and identified genomic alterations that could play a role in the disease.

Cambridge, Mass., February 22, 2010 -- From how massive humpbacks glide through the sea with ease to the efficient way fungal spores fly, applied mathematicians at Harvard have excavated the equations behind a variety of complex phenomena.

The latest numerical feat by Otger Campàs and Michael Brenner, working closely with a team of Harvard evolutionary biologists led by Arhat Abzhanov, zeroes in on perhaps the most famous icon of evolution: the beaks of Darwin's finches.

On February 21, the seventeenth tropical depression formed in the South Pacific Ocean. Today, February 22, the storm has strengthened into Tropical Storm 17P (TS 17P) with maximum sustained winds near 39 mph, and it was about 740 miles east-northeast of Pago Pago.

Clinicians may use one of several approaches to deny patient requests for an inappropriate treatment while preserving the physician-patient relationship, according to a report in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The costs that hospitals incur in treating patients vary widely and do not appear to be strongly associated either with the quality of care patients receive or their risk of dying within 30 days, according to a report in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Most directors of internal medicine residency training programs would prefer not to accept pharmaceutical support for the residencies they oversee, but more than half report doing so, according to an article in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Multidisciplinary care teams consisting of clinicians, nurses and other health care professionals appear to be associated with a lower risk of death among patients in the intensive care unit, according to a report in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A second report finds that an increasing number of surgical patients are being managed jointly by a surgeon and another clinician, such as a hospitalist or internal medicine sub-specialist.

Washington D.C. – Two common conditions caused by hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) killed 48,000 people and ramped up health care costs by $8.1 billion in 2006 alone, according to a study released today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

This is the largest nationally representative study to date of the toll taken by sepsis and pneumonia, two conditions often caused by deadly microbes, including the antibiotic-resistant bacteria MRSA. Such infections can lead to longer hospital stays, serious complications and even death.

MADISON — Genetic interactions between avian H5N1 influenza and human seasonal influenza viruses have the potential to create hybrid strains combining the virulence of bird flu with the pandemic ability of H1N1, according to a new study.

In laboratory experiments in mice, a single gene segment from a human seasonal flu virus, H3N2, was able to convert the avian H5N1 virus into a highly pathogenic form. The findings are reported the week of Feb. 22 in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.