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Cameroon is a sub-Saharan African country with high HIV rates yet many pregnant women do not know their HIV status. Research published in the open access journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth has shown that HIV testing during labour is a suitable way of improving detection rates and may help mothers and their infants receive appropriate antiretroviral treatment.

The experimental drug fampridine (4-aminopyridine) improves walking ability in some individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). That is the conclusion of a multi-center Phase 3 clinical trial, the results of which were published today in the journal The Lancet.

An innovative mentoring program at the UCSF-Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology Center for AIDS Research is providing vital support for the development of the next generation of HIV/AIDS researchers and clinician scientists.

Described in an article published in the American Journal for Public Health appearing February 26 in the First Look section of the AJPH website, the program focuses on overcoming challenges faced by early-career investigators through several novel mechanisms.

Like it or not, your mouth is home to a thriving community of microbial life. More than 600 different species of bacteria reside in this "microbiome," yet everyone hosts a unique set of bugs, and this could have important implications for health and disease. In a study published online in Genome Research (www.genome.org), scientists have performed the first global survey of salivary microbes, finding that the oral microbiome of your neighbor is just as different from yours as someone across the globe.

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Muscular dystrophy, which affects approximately 250,000 people in the United States, occurs when damaged muscle tissue is replaced with fibrous, bony or fatty tissue and loses function. While scientists have identified one protein, dystrophin, as an important piece to curing the disease, another part of the mystery has eluded scientists for the past 14 years. Now, one University of Missouri scientist and his team have identified the location of the genetic material responsible for a molecular compound that is vital to curing the disease.

College Park, Md. – A state task force co-directed by the University of Maryland and the State Department of Education concludes in a new report that the state is "uniquely positioned" to help meet national foreign language needs by tapping its abundant pool of well-educated, bilingual speakers.

The Task Force on the Preservation of Heritage Language Skills, created by the Maryland General Assembly, is the first state-sponsored effort of its kind in the nation.

Study was conducted with 274 adults with intellectual disabilities currently receiving funding from a state developmental disability agency

Clinicians should be alert to patients reporting "excessive" day time sleepiness (EDS), says the European Society of Cardiology, after a French study found healthy elderly people who regularly report feeling sleepy during the day have a significantly higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

A system of opposing genetic forces determines why mammals develop a single row of teeth, while sharks sport several, according to a study published today in the journal Science. When completely understood, the genetic program described in the study may help guide efforts to re-grow missing teeth and prevent cleft palate, one of the most common birth defects.

WOOSTER, OH—Black raspberries have been studied for decades by scientists and medical researchers interested in the fruits' apparent ability to limit the onset or severity of degenerative diseases, including cancer.

ITHACA, NY - Orchard floor and groundcover management is important to fruit growers, affecting the efficiency of orchard operations, fruit tree performance, and soil quality.

Herbicide-treated tree rows with mowed grass "drive lanes" are the most widely used orchard groundcover management systems (GMS) in North America and Europe; the system is widely considered to be the most efficient and least expensive GMS.

WOOSTER, OH—When it comes to fresh vegetables and fruits, color is one of the best indicators of quality. Along with texture, size, and flavor, color plays an important role in the business of horticultural crop production and marketing.

In tomatoes, for example, color and color uniformity contribute directly to quality and marketability. The presence of yellow shoulder disorder, or YSD, a ripening disorder that results in blotchy discoloration under the skin of the tomato, is a major quality issue.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers at Purdue University have developed a technique using spun-sugar filaments to create a scaffold of tiny synthetic tubes that might serve as conduits to regenerate nerves severed in accidents or blood vessels damaged by disease.

The sugar filaments are coated with a corn-based degradable polymer, and then the sugar is dissolved in water, leaving behind bundles of hollow polymer tubes that mimic those found in nerves, said Riyi Shi, an associate professor in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Basic Medical Sciences.

February 26, 2009 – (BRONX, NY) – A combination of two FDA-approved drugs, already approved for fighting other bacterial infections, shows potential for treating extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the most deadly form of the infection. This finding is reported by scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the February 27 issue of Science.

WHAT: In a finding that could soon help people infected with untreatable, highly drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), scientists have shown that two FDA-approved drugs work in tandem to kill laboratory-grown strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterium that causes TB. The drugs--meropenem and clavulanate--are already used to treat other bacterial diseases, but their effectiveness against TB bacteria had not been studied systematically until now.