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November 11, 2014, Hong Kong, China -- Published today in the Open Access and Open Data Journal GigaScience, researchers from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain and the National Institutes of Health in the USA provide a fantastic example of open data sharing to help build these exact tools: a wealth of patient imaging data[1]. Even better: to enable reproducible comparisons between new tools, the researchers and journal have taken the unusual step of publishing and packaging the data alongside tools, scripts and the software required to run the experiments.

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 11, 2014 - Plant diseases attack trees and crops and can hurt lumber and food production, but University of Utah biologists found that pathogens that kill tree seedlings actually can make forests more diverse.

Whether you are a human being or an orang-utan, tools can be a big help in getting what you need to survive. However, a review of current research into the use of tools by non-human primates suggests that ecological opportunity, rather than necessity, is the main driver behind primates such as chimpanzees picking up a stone to crack open nuts.

In The BMJ this week, they say the system is broken and they call on NHS England to ensure that detainees are screened for mental health problems and that facilities maintain the standards of care expected of the NHS.

They also warn that doctors "must not be complicit in a system that prioritises deterrence over protection of refugees and asylum seekers."

The number of people held in immigration removal centres in the UK has steadily increased, with a total of over 30,000 held in 2013, they write. At any one time, up to 3,000 people can be detained.

Wits University and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) released a new study, led by Wits academics, showing rates of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) - including cases caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria - have fallen substantially in South Africa following the introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in 2009.

The release of the results of the study coincides with World Pneumonia Day, commemorated annually on 12 November.

BOSTON, MA - More patients with cancer use hospice today than ever before, but there are indications that care intensity outside of hospice is increasing, and length of hospice stay decreasing. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) examined how hospice affects health care utilization and costs and found that in a sample of elderly Medicare patients with advanced cancer, hospice care was associated with significantly lower rates of both health care utilization and total costs during the last year of life.

Popular commercial diets can help you lose some weight in the short term, but keeping the weight off after the first year and the diet's impact on heart health are unclear, according to a study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

Nearly 70 percent of American adults are overweight or obese - and therefore at higher risk for health problems such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. Whether a diet will be effective is an important public health question.

Among approximately 26,000 women, receipt of the tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine during pregnancy was not associated with increased risk of preterm delivery or small-for-gestational-age birth or with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, although a small increased risk of being diagnosed with chorioamnionitis (an inflammation of the membranes that surround the fetus) was observed, according to a study in the November 12 issue of JAMA.

Medicare patients with poor­ prognosis cancers who received hospice care had significantly lower rates of hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and invasive procedures at the end of life, along with significantly lower health care expenditures during the last year of life, according to a study in the November 12 issue of JAMA.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Research has demonstrated with some of the first experimental evidence that coloration or patterns can be used to "deflect" attacks from predators, protecting an animal's most vulnerable parts from the predators most likely to attack them.

The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in fact shows that one species of butterfly uses its "eyespots" not only for protection, but varies the color and intensity of them by season as the types of predators change.

HOUSTON - (Nov. 11, 2014) -- Genomic tests using next generation sequencing technologies are increasingly being offered in a range of clinical settings, but these tests may only transform clinical practice if patients and clinicians have access to them, said medical ethics experts from Baylor College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in a commentary published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A record number of people are surviving heart attacks and stroke but those who do may experience a sharp decline in physical abilities that steadily accelerates over time, according to a new nationally-representative study led by the University of Michigan.

This news release is available in French.

Montreal, November 11, 2014 -- Regardless of whether a business has been in the family for one year or one thousand, the person in charge typically hopes that handing the reins to a close relative will ensure security for future generations. But that's easier said than done, given that 30 per cent of firms make it to the second generation of family ownership, and only 12 per cent make it to the third.

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published online this week in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports anti-cancer activity in 10 out of 11 patient tumor samples grown in mice and treated with the experimental drug TAK-733, a small molecule inhibitor of MEK1/2. While the drug is conceived as a second-generation inhibitor in patients harboring the BRAF mutation, the study shows drug activity in melanoma models regardless of BRAF mutation status. Treated tumors shrunk up to 100 percent.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- When munched by grazing animals (or mauled by scientists in the lab), some herbaceous plants overcompensate - producing more plant matter and becoming more fertile than they otherwise would. Scientists say they now know how these plants accomplish this feat of regeneration.

They report their findings in the journal Molecular Ecology.