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Girls moving through adolescence may experience unhealthy levels of weight gain, but the reasons for this are not always clear. In fact, many potential causes of weight gain are easily overlooked. A new study soon to be published in the Journal of Pediatrics analyzes the effect of Internet usage, sleep, and alcohol and coffee consumption on weight gain in adolescent girls.

Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official about health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said yesterday.

Some of the government's top scientists were forced by Vice President Cheney's office to downplay the health dangers of global warming when testifying before Congress, a former senior EPA official said Tuesday.

New figures on assisted reproduction technology in Europe show that there has been an explosion in the use of ICSI to treat infertility, the 24th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona heard on Wednesday. Researchers believe that some countries may now be using the procedure too often.

Diabetes in men has a direct effect on fertility, a scientist told the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology on Wednesday 9 July. Dr. Con Mallidis from Queen's university, Belfast, UK, said that, despite the prevailing view that it had little effect on male reproductive function, the Belfast group had shown that diabetes caused DNA damage in sperm.

Ancient bird fossils have yielded the remains of pouches that produce colour ? the same technique could be applied to dinosaurs

Eating with TensionThe long, thin beaks of shorebirds called phalaropes are no good at sucking up water and any tasty crustaceans within. Instead they rely on the attractive force of liquid known as surface tension to ferry prey upward. The birds first swim in small, fast circles on the surface of the water, creating a vortex that pulls creatures up within their reach. They next peck at the water and then rapidly open and close their beaks. This scissoring motion both pulls and squeezes droplets, about two millimeters in size, and moves them from the tip of their beaks into their mouths. In experiments with mechanical beaks, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the French National Center for Scientific Research find that the droplets do not move well if the water contains oil, detergents and other pollutants that alter water’s surface tension. Draw in the findings from the May 16 science. [More]

THE LEGACY OF THE MASTODON: THE GOLDEN AGE OF FOSSILS IN AMERICAby Keith Thomson, Yale university Press, 2008 [More]

Golfers enjoying a great day have long said the hole looks bigger than it is — even as big as a bucket. Now a new study suggests that successful athletes may actually perceive the world around them differently.

Researchers have launched the first trial directly comparing the pill and vaginal gel formulations of the antiretroviral drug tenofovir to answer key questions about their use as HIV prevention in women. Are there differences in how the drug is absorbed, especially in the vagina's infection-prone cells? And will women prefer one daily approach over another? Findings will help determine optimal dosing of and adherence to ARV-based prevention methods.