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WASHINGTON -- A new report from the Institute of Medicine recommends 100 health topics that should get priority attention and funding from a new national research effort to identify which health care services work best. It also spells out actions and resources needed to ensure that this comparative effectiveness research initiative will be a sustained effort with a continuous process for updating priorities as needed and that the results are put into clinical practice.

The equipment used for biomedical research is shrinking, but the physical properties of the fluids under investigation are not changing. This creates a problem: the reservoirs that hold the liquid are now so small that forces between molecules on the liquid's surface dominate, and one can no longer shake the container to mix two fluids. Instead, researchers must bide their time and wait for diffusion to occur.

A new report issued by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) and published in the scientific journal Osteoporosis International1, shows that populations across the globe are suffering from the impact of low levels of vitamin D. The problem is widespread and on the increase, with potentially severe repercussions for overall health and fracture rates.

PHILADELPHIA – Physiological changes associated with the metabolic syndrome may play a role in the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, according to study results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The metabolic syndrome, or insulin resistance syndrome, consists of a constellation of factors including abdominal obesity, high blood glucose levels, impaired glucose tolerance, abnormal lipid levels and high blood pressure.

PHILADELPHIA - As scientists continue to decode the human genome and the information becomes publicly available, private companies that offer online genetic testing are multiplying. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health were concerned that perhaps these tests posed a risk.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The potential of forest biotechnology to help address significant social and environmental issues is being "strangled at birth" by the rigid opposition of some groups and regulations that effectively preclude even the testing of genetically modified trees, scientists argue in a new report.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a difficult infection to treat and requires six months of multiple antibiotics to cure it. To combat the TB pandemic, a shorter and simpler drug treatment would be a huge advance since most TB occurs in resource-limited settings with poor public health infrastructures.

In the past, even modern technologies have failed to produce high-resolution fluorescence images from this depth because of the strong scattering of light. In the Nature Photonics journal, the Munich researchers describe how they can reveal genetic expression within live fly larvae and fish by "listening to light". In the future this technology may facilitate the examination of tumors or coronary vessels in humans.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It is well documented that police officers have a higher risk of developing heart disease: The question is why.

In the most recent results coming out of one of the few long-term studies being conducted within this tightly knit society, University at Buffalo researchers have determined that underlying the higher incidence of subclinical atherosclerosis -- arterial thickening that precedes a heart attack or stroke -- may be the stress of police work.

With the increasing popularity of whitening one's teeth, researchers at the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, part of the University of Rochester Medical Center, set out to learn if there are negative effects on the tooth from using whitening products.

Eastman Institute's YanFang Ren, DDS, PhD, and his team determined that the effects of 6 percent hydrogen peroxide, the common ingredient in professional and over-the-counter whitening products, are insignificant compared to acidic fruit juices. Orange juice markedly decreased hardness and increased roughness of tooth enamel.

Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history—significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice.

A team of Harvard scientists has taken an important first step toward the development of new treatments to help people with HIV battle Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) infection. In their report, appearing in the July 2009 print issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) they describe how HIV interferes with the cellular and molecular mechanisms used by the lungs to fight TB infection.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: One-step screening for both genetic and chromosomal abnormalities has come a stage closer as scientists announced that an embryo test they have been developing has successfully screened cells taken from spare embryos that were known to have cystic fibrosis.

They told a news briefing at the 25th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam today (Tuesday) that, as a result, they would be able to offer clinical trials to couples seeking fertility treatment later this year.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Transferring just one embryo at a time to a woman's womb after embryos have undergone preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and freezing at the blastocyst stage has become a real option after researchers achieved pregnancy rates that were as good as those for blastocysts that had not had a cell removed for PGD before freezing. Their results mean that it will be possible to reduce the number of multiple pregnancies after PGD and the consequent complications associated with these pregnancies.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Researchers have found evidence that chronic disease in either a mother or father can create unfavourable conditions in the womb that are associated with the development of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in daughters. In another study, researchers found that brothers of women with PCOS and insulin resistance are themselves at greater risk of developing insulin resistance or diabetes, suggesting that factors associated with the condition can be passed down to sons as well as daughters.