A vaginal microbicide can cut HIV infection rates by 39 percent in women, researchers announced Monday. And female study participants who inserted the gel as directed reduced their chances of contracting HIV by more than half (54 percent). The news is a stunning, positive development-- especially for women at risk for sexual transmission--in a field that has been plagued by two decades of failed and aborted trials . [More]



HIV - Health - Conditions and Diseases - AIDS - Sexually transmitted disease

A new study shows that children with brain tumors who undergo radiation therapy (the application of X-rays to kill cancerous cells and shrink tumors) may benefit from a technique known as "intensity modulated arc therapy" or IMAT.

Scientists have tested whether networks of brain cells kept alive in culture could be "trained" to keep time. The findings suggest that networks of brain cells can learn to generate simple timed intervals.

People confronted with acute stress -- daily rocket attacks -- tend to dissociate from threats instead of becoming more vigilant, according to a new study. This research overturns accepted convention and may lead to better understanding of the mechanisms underlying acute stress reactions.

One in every 100 elderly people suffers from Parkinson’s disease, a disease of the nervous system with symptoms including stiffness and shaking. The standard medication used to treat Parkinson’s is Levodopa, a drug that initially has major benefits but can later also produce serious side effects in the form of involuntary, jerky movements. A research group has now found a way to study what it is in the brain that causes these side effects.

June was the fourth consecutive month that was the warmest on record for the combined global land and surface temperatures (March, April, and May were also the warmest). This was the 304th consecutive month with a combined global land and surface temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below average temperatures was February 1985.

Jellyfish moved into the oceans off the coast of southwest Africa when the sardine population crashed. Now another small fish is living in the oxygen-depleted zone part-time and turning the once ecologically dead-end jellyfish into dinner, according to an international team of scientists.

With the aim of speeding up the process of studying zebrafish larvae and enabling large-scale studies, engineers have developed a new technique that can analyze the larvae in seconds.

Summer just wouldn't be complete without mosquitoes nipping at exposed skin. Or would it? New research may help solve a problem that scientists and pest controllers have been itching to for years. Scientists have developed a way to use nanoparticles to deliver double-stranded ribonucleic acid to silence genes in mosquito larvae.

Researchers have now shown that women can multitask more effectively than men.