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Community groups in rural Vietnam comprised of local health workers, politicians and laywomen (Maternal and Newborn Health Groups) set up to tackle challenges to maternal and neonatal health may reduce the neonatal death rate after three years and increase antenatal care attendance, according to a study by researchers from Sweden and Vietnam published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

These findings are important as they show that is it feasible to implement community-based activity into the public sector system at low cost.

While considerable recent progress has been made against childhood diarrheal diseases, the number of children dying from diarrhoea remains unacceptably high. This week, PLOS Medicine publishes a report based upon the work of over 150 international experts who convened to review and discuss research priorities to address this global problem. Zulfiqar Bhutta from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan and colleagues report that the most important priority is for more research on implementation of known interventions.

These days, phylogeneticists – experts who painstakingly map the complex branches of the tree of life – suffer from an embarrassment of riches. The genomics revolution has given them mountains of DNA data that they can sift through to reconstruct the evolutionary history that connects all living beings. But the unprecedented quantity has also caused a serious problem: The trees produced by a number of well-supported studies have come to contradictory conclusions.

Cancún, Mexico -- A high-tech archeological exploration team of scientists and a filmmaker, who announced a year ago that they had glimpsed remnants of what might be a fabled ancient city in the Honduran rain forests, plans to speak about the team's discoveries here tomorrow (15 May) at the 2013 Meeting of the Americas, and to show previously undisclosed images of apparent archeological sites.

(McLean, VA) May 15, 2013 – Potatoes and other white vegetables are just as important to a healthy diet as their colorful cousins in the produce aisle, according to the authors of a scientific supplement published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal, Advances in Nutrition. Although green, red and orange veggies are often promoted as top nutrient sources, white vegetables are nutrient powerhouses in their own right and deserve a place on your plate.

Denver, Colorado – May 15, 2013 – A co-author of a groundbreaking study documenting reductions in patient length of stay and overall costs from implementation of an antibiotic stewardship program using Bruker's MALDI Biotyper will share her observations at a Bruker symposium to be held during the upcoming American Society for Microbiology (ASM) General Meeting.

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The principal investigators of the research — psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen of Aarhus University and Daniel Sznycer of University of California, Santa Barbara — believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to influence behavior today.

A novel avian-origin reassortant influenza A (H7N9) virus emerged in China in February 2013, and is associated with severe lower respiratory tract diseases. To date, more than 100 human cases of infection, including at least 20 deaths, have been reported in China. Three early cases of infection were described in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. The general clinical features of the three patients were similar to the previously reported cases in China. Two of the three patients had a history of direct contact with live poultry markets.

Women's immune systems age more slowly than men's, suggests research in BioMed Central's open access journal Immunity & Ageing. The slower decline in a woman's immune system may contribute to women living longer than men.

Women with a lean body shape have a greater risk of developing endometriosis than women who are morbidly obese, according to the largest prospective study to investigate the link.

The study, which is published online today (Wednesday) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1], found that the risk of endometriosis was 39% lower in morbidly obese women – those with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 40 kg/m2 – compared with women with a current BMI in the low normal range (18.5-22.4 kg/m2).

An international team of scientists have revealed a new species of ichthyosaur (a dolphin-like marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs) from Iraq, which revolutionises our understanding of the evolution and extinction of these ancient marine reptiles.

The journal says it is committed to "stepping up its commitment to patient partnership" and wants to "develop a strategy for patient partnership that will be reflected across the entire journal."

Community groups in rural Vietnam comprised of local health workers, politicians and laywomen (Maternal and Newborn Health Groups) set up to tackle challenges to maternal and neonatal health may reduce the neonatal death rate after three years and increase antenatal care attendance, according to a study by researchers from Sweden and Vietnam published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

These findings are important as they show that is it feasible to implement community-based activity into the public sector system at low cost.

The bacterium M. pneumoniae is carried at high rates in the upper respiratory tracts of healthy children and usual diagnostic tests cannot differentiate between such asymptomatic carriage and actual respiratory tract infection, according to a study by Dutch researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

These findings are important as they suggest that clinicians may need to reconsider the clinical significance of a positive test result for the presence of this bacterium.

While considerable recent progress has been made against childhood diarrheal diseases, the number of children dying from diarrhoea remains unacceptably high. This week, PLOS Medicine publishes a report based upon the work of over 150 international experts who convened to review and discuss research priorities to address this global problem. Zulfiqar Bhutta from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan and colleagues report that the most important priority is for more research on implementation of known interventions.