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Most women responding to a survey conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) clinics indicated they would be willing to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) and to have their daughters and even sons vaccinated in order to prevent cancer in their children. The report in the March issue of Gynecologic Oncology also found that Latino women are just as likely, if not more so, to accept HPV vaccine as non-Latinos.

When threatened, many animals release chemicals as a warning signal to members of their own species, who in turn react to the signals and take action. Research by Rice University psychologist Denise Chen suggests a similar phenomenon occurs in humans. Given that more than one sense is typically involved when humans perceive information, Chen studied whether the smell of fear facilitates humans' other stronger senses.

BOSTON—A survey of physicians has found broad support for the position that parents should not bank their newborns' umbilical cord blood in a private blood bank unless another member of the family is at risk for a blood disease that will require a stem cell transplant.

The results of the survey are reported by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and their colleagues in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics. Their findings are in general accord with the recommendations of medical organizations that have previously weighed in on the issue.

A computer model called SIMONE, for Simulator for Interruptions and Message Overload in Network Environments described in the latest issue of the International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, could help solve email overload in busy organizations and companies.

INDIANAPOLIS – During the course of a hospitalization, patients are seen by a variety of specialists in addition to the physician who has primary responsibility for their care. However, faulty communication, inappropriate timing, inadequate details, illegibility, lost paperwork or other problems may keep the specialists' recommendations from being evaluated and implemented.

WASHINGTON -- The White House should lead the reformulation of U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs to focus on combating international terrorism and other current threats, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. The government's first CTR programs were created in 1991 to eliminate the former Soviet Union's nuclear, chemical, and other weapons and prevent their proliferation.

DURHAM, N.C. – By targeting and disabling a protein frequently found in melanoma tumors, doctors may be able to make the cancer more vulnerable to chemotherapy, according to early results of a clinical study conducted by researchers in the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

(March 9, 2009, Mumbai, India) – Today World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society published The Tobacco Atlas, Third Edition and released an online version of the document at TobaccoAtlas.org. This comprehensive volume of research and its accompanying website graphically display how tobacco is devastating both global health and economies.

A $500 Billion Hole in Global Economy

Life is hard for the children of a parent suffering from depression. Children take on an enormous amount of responsibility for the ill parent and for other family members. It is therefore important for the health services to be aware of this and have support functions in place for the whole family, and not just for the person who is ill. This is the conclusion of a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

If plants could speak they will boast about being part of remedies such as the common aspirin to a leukaemia drug derived from the rosy periwinkle. Over a quarter of western medicines contain plant toxins some deriving from tropical forest species. Forest plants have been the source of the most effective drugs in the history of pharmacology but only two per cent have been screened for their pharmaceutical potential.

A doctoral thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that it is possible to describe and quantify the relationships between dose, concentration and effectiveness of several drugs against HIV/AIDS and malaria. The method may allow improved treatment and fewer undesired effects for patients with these diseases.

STORRS, Conn. - Chemists at the University of Connecticut have found a way to greatly increase the luminescence efficiency of single-walled carbon nanotubes, a discovery that could have significant applications in medical imaging and other areas.

There's more bad news for people who carry excess weight around their waists: Not only is abdominal obesity associated with diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and a host of other health problems collectively known as "metabolic syndrome," a new study has found that a high waist circumference is strongly associated with decreased lung function—independent of smoking history, sex, body mass index (BMI) and other complicating factors.

Diagnosing and treating obstructive sleep apnea may soon become much less expensive and arduous, thanks to new research showing that a simplified program using experienced nurses, home ambulatory diagnosis and auto-titrating continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines to titrate CPAP pressures is not inferior to the traditional model which relies on specialist physicians and sleep studies.

The randomized, multi-center study directly compared the results of two OSA diagnosis and treatment protocols, "simplified" and traditional, as well as there respective costs.

Researchers have discovered that a long-defunct gene was resurrected during the course of human evolution. This is believed to be the first evidence of a doomed gene – infection-fighting human IRGM – making a comeback in the human/great ape lineage. The study, led by Evan Eichler's genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is published March 6 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.