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NEW YORK (September 4, 2008)—Using remote camera traps to lift the veil on Myanmar's dense northern wild lands, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have painstakingly gathered a bank of valuable data on the country's populations of tigers and other smaller, lesser known carnivores (see photo attachments). These findings will help in the formulation of conservation strategies for the country's wildlife.

Don't move a muscle! Patients certainly have to take this request to heart if they have to lie in a magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) device – otherwise movement artefacts result on the images produced by the MRT. These are distorting elements in the image which show the movement of the body, but not the body itself. Movement is a disturbing factor which leads to blurring and "ghosting" in the MRT image. Patients, however, have to have not only a lot of patience but also endurance, as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test can take up to 30 minutes.

INDIANAPOLIS – Community-based exercise organizations, such as the YMCA, are an effective tool in the fight against diabetes, according to a study by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers in the October 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The main etiology of bile duct strictures closely related to the liver is a malignancy (cancer). However, the differentiation of benign and malignant strictures is notoriously difficult. The consequences for the patient are considerable because cancer in this anatomical location requires extensive surgery with removal of a large part of the liver. Extensive work-up including multi-slice computed tomography (CT), colour Doppler ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may improve the diagnostic dilemma.

Water bears (tardigrades) are the first animals in the world to have survived exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space. This has been established by Ingemar Jönsson, a researcher at Kristianstad University in Sweden.

It has been nearly a year since the ecologist Ingemar Jönsson had some 3,000 microscopic water bears sent up on a twelve-day space trip. The aim of the research project, which was supported by the European Space Agency, was to find out more about the basic physiology of tardigrades by seeing if they can survive in a space environment.

Extending Medicare to include private hospitals could lower Australians' reliance on private health insurance and reduce waiting lists, a health economics expert says.

Professor Jim Butler, Director of the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH) based at ANU, says that opening up private hospitals to more patients will have a double benefit: reducing queues for public hospitals, and making public and private hospitals more competitive.

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A new drug therapy may represent a tremendous step forward in the treatment of some 70,000 cystic fibrosis (CF) patients worldwide, Dr David Sheppard from the University of Bristol will tell an audience at the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool tomorrow [9 September].

Speaking ahead of the conference, Dr Sheppard said:

'The early results with VX-770 suggest that drug therapies which target defects at the root of the disease have the potential to improve greatly the quality of life of CF patients.'

San Diego, September 9, 2008 – With over 60 million Americans diagnosed with prediabetes, putting them at increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular events and other obesity-related ailments, finding ways to help large populations avoid these complications is an important initiative. In an article published in the October 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine report that organizations such as the YMCA can be an effective vehicle for diabetes-prevention education.

Washington, DC — Widespread use of nanoscale silver will challenge regulatory agencies to balance important potential benefits against the possibility of significant environmental risk, highlighting the need to identify research priorities concerning this emerging technology, according to a new report released today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN).

Death rates from lung cancer are higher among men who have never smoked than women who have never smoked, says new research published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The research also reports that among lifelong nonsmokers, African Americans and Asians living in Asia (but not in the USA) have higher death rates from lung cancer than people of European descent.

There is an urgent need to develop systems to assess the safety of antimalarials in early pregnancy, says a new essay in this week's PLoS Medicine.

Feiko ter Kuile (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK) and colleagues report that the anti-malarial drugs artemisinins are effective and commonly used, but they have been shown to be toxic to embryos in animal models. Their safety in early human pregnancies remains uncertain, despite up to 10% of embryos being exposed to anti-malarial drugs in malaria endemic countries.

UK children's physical activity levels have been greatly overestimated, with true levels likely to be around six times lower than national data suggest, finds research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood .

Annual health survey data are used to inform UK public health policy and practice, and the figures indicate that the UK population takes a lot of exercise, and that children have been increasingly physically active over the past few years.

Children who are bilingual before the age of 5 are significantly more likely to stutter and to find it harder to lose their impediment, than children who speak only one language before this age, suggests research published ahead of print in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The researchers base their findings on 317 children, who were referred for stutter when aged between 8 and 10.

All the children lived in Greater London, and all had started school in the UK at the age of 4 or 5.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. However, many people with cardiovascular disease have none of the common risk factors such as smoking, obesity and high cholesterol. Now, researchers have discovered a new link between gum disease and heart disease that may help find ways to save lives, scientists heard today (Tuesday 9 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.