Inner Workings of the Immune System Filmed
from Science Daily
Forget what's No. 1 at the box office this week. The most exciting new film features the intricate workings of the body, filmed by scientists using ground-breaking technology. For the first time in Australia, scientists at Sydney's Centenary Institute have filmed an immune cell becoming infected by a parasite and followed the infection as it begins to spread throughout the body. More

New Breast Imaging Modalities Reveal Cancers as Small as a Single Millimeter
from Medscape Medical News
Two imaging modalities that look at breast cancer activity on a cellular level can pick up occult tumors that are only 1 to 3 millimeters in size in women with a history of breast cancer, radiologists reported at the 94th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America reported recently. More

11 New Cholesterol Genes Identified
from The Washington Post
An international research team that screened the genes of more than 40,000 people has identified 11 more regions that govern levels of blood fats such as LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. More

Gene Therapy Corrects Sickle Cell Disease in Laboratory Study
from The Wall Street Journal
New St. Jude treatment alleviates long-term anemia and organ damage in mice and paves the way for human applications. Using a harmless virus to insert a corrective gene into mouse blood cells, scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., have alleviated sickle cell disease pathology. More

Tasimelteon Reduces Transient Insomnia After Acute Sleep-Time Shift
from Medscape Medical News
Randomized trial results with tasimelteon, a melatonin agonist, suggest that the still-investigational agent improves sleep initiation and maintenance in concert with an acute shift in endogenous circadian rhythms after an abrupt advance in sleep time. The findings suggest that tasimelteon might be useful in treating transient insomnia associated with circadian-rhythm sleep disorders, such as that caused by jet lag or in night-shift work, the researchers conclude. More

Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles that of Stroke Victims
from Science Daily
University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids. Brain function was measured by means of an electroencephalograph – basically, a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain – like that used to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors. More

Zimbabwe Urges Residents to Skip Handshakes in Cholera Outbreak
from Bloomberg
Zimbabwe advised residents to avoid handshakes and body contact in an effort to curb the spread of a cholera epidemic that has killed at least 565 people. Soap, along with most basic commodities, is also in short supply in the southern African nation, now in its 10th year of economic recession. More

Blood Tests on Heels of Workout Can Be Off
from The Columbus Dispatch
The 40-year-old man, having just finished a 10-kilometer run, seemed perfectly healthy. After he fainted, though, he was rushed to an emergency room – where the levels of a heart protein, troponin, in his blood tested as sky-high. Was he having a heart attack? More

Avoiding Dengue Fever
from The Washington Post
Dengue fever, a flulike virus that's spread through mosquito bites, has become a major public health problem in the tropical world. That includes St. Maarten/St. Martin, which share the same island in the Netherlands Antilles. An October outbreak there sickened 72 people and resulted in two deaths. More