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Decreases in birth and death rates explain the shift in age distribution of dengue hemorrhagic fever in Thailand, according to a new paper in this week's open access journal PLoS Medicine.

A team of Michigan State University researchers has developed a new, more efficient way of cloning zebra fish, a breakthrough that could have implications for human health research.

The work of the MSU researchers, detailed in the recent issue of the journal Nature Methods, is important because zebra fish, small striped fish common to many aquariums, are quickly becoming the animal of choice for many researchers.

Scientists have developed a new molecular sensor that can reveal the amount of zinc in cells, which could tell us more about a number of diseases, including type 2 diabetes. The research, published today in Nature Methods, opens the door to the hidden world of zinc biology by giving scientists an accurate way of measuring the concentration of zinc and its location in cells for the first time.

Investigators at Hospital for Special Surgery, collaborating with researchers from other institutions, have contributed to the discovery that a gene called interferon regulator factor-8 (IRF-8) is involved in the development of diseases such as periodontitis (gum disease), rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. The study, which will be published online August 30, ahead of print, in the journal Nature Medicine, could lead to new treatments in the future.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A national team of researchers led by scientists at Mayo Clinic has found that a common treatment for primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic liver disease, is not helpful for patients, according to a study published this month in the journal Hepatology.

A group of researchers from the Fat Institute (CSIC) and the University of Seville have confirmed that some wild plants have a high nutritional value. The scientists have found that several species of lupins from the mountains of Andalusia have a protein content similar to that of other cultivated legumes, as they publish in the online version of the Food Chemistry magazine.

Genetic variants in a region on chromosome 9q may influence asthma development in Mexican children, according to research published in the August 28 issue of the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

A new type of fetal heart monitor could save the lives of unborn infants in complicated pregnancies, according to a study published in the International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation.

A.K. Mittra of the Department of Electronics Engineering, at the Manoharbhai Patel Institute of Engineering & Technology, in Gondia, India, and colleagues have developed a simple device based on a two-microphone system that can monitor fetal heart rate during the mother's rest times and sleep and send an alert to the woman and her physician.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 1.5 to 2 million Americans are infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Prior studies have shown there to be significant racial differences in access to and outcomes of liver transplantation. Recently, doctors from across the U.S. conducted a multicenter retrospective-prospective study of the waitlist status and outcomes of liver transplant patients with HBV infection.

The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study led by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology. The genetic change that enabled early Europeans to drink milk without getting sick has been mapped to dairying farmers who lived around 7,500 years ago in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe.

Urine LAM-ELISA does not appear to be useful as an independent diagnostic test for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). A trial of the new diagnostic, described in the open access journal BMC Infectious Diseases found that it was only capable of identifying 50.7% of TB cases.

A pilot study of a system for harvesting kidneys from non-heart-beating donors where attempts of resuscitation after a witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have failed (uncontrolled NHBDs) resulted in 21 successful kidney transplants - a 10% increase in the transplantation rate - over 17 months. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care have shown that retrieval from uncontrolled NHBDs may provide a valuable source of organs and could help counter the shortage of kidney grafts in France.

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have discovered why older people may be so vulnerable to cancer and infections in the skin. The team from UCL has shown in human volunteers that defective immunity in the skin is caused by an inability to mobilise essential defences that would otherwise recognise threats and clear them before irreparable damage is done. This discovery could be important for preventing, managing or treating many age-related skin health problems.

The molecular mechanisms of tungstate activity in diabetes have been uncovered. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genomics have identified the pathways through which sodium tungstate improves pancreatic function and beta cell proliferation.

The blood thinner warfarin can prevent strokes in most individuals with abnormal heart rhythms, but the drug may have the opposite effect in kidney disease patients on dialysis, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that warfarin should be prescribed with caution in patients with kidney failure.