Acupuncture has been used in East-Asian medicine for thousands of years to treat pain and some people swear by it, but if and how it works at the cellular level is largely unknown.

Using brain imaging, a University of Michigan study says they have evidence that traditional Chinese acupuncture affects the brain's long-term ability to regulate pain by activating the body's natural painkillers. 

Acupuncture needs a boost due to recent controversy over large studies showing that sham acupuncture is as effective as real acupuncture in reducing chronic pain. 

If you're the family member of a critical care patient, you prefer doctors to keep their opinions on life support decisions to themselves, according to new research that challenges a long-held belief in the critical care community that caregivers want advice on the matter . 

The research found that surrogates are virtually split when it comes to how much guidance they want to receive from physicians in making end-of-life medical choices on behalf of critically ill patients, according to lead author of the paper, Douglas B. White, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

A group of University of Utah scientists say they developed a "molecular condom" that could help protect women against AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas.

It's a vaginal gel that turns semisolid in the presence of semen, trapping AIDS virus particles in a microscopic mesh so they can't infect vaginal cells.

A study testing the behavior of the new gel and showing how it traps AIDS-causing HIV particles will be published online later this week in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The sex hormone estrogen tempers the killing activity of immune cells called cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), which are known to attack tumor cells and cells infected by viruses.

Estrogen plays a critical role in the regulation of growth and the development of cells and is also crucial for cell-type-specific gene expression in various tissues. Deregulation of this system results in breast and ovarian cancer.  The key player in this process is a cytotoxic T cell molecule known as EBAG9.

Breast and ovarian tumors are treated with drugs such as tamoxifen. Researchers suggest that this drug inhibits tumor growth by blocking the estrogen receptors of the tumor cells. However, up to now it has been unclear what effect this inhibition has on the immune system. 

Methane was discovered on Mars in 2004, meaning volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface or, if you are exceptionally kooky, that life there is generating it.

When Mars Express arrived in orbit around the red planet, Vittorio Formisano, Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario CNR, Rome, and the rest of the instrument team using planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) began taking data and saw a puzzling signal; along with atmospheric gases such as carbon monoxide and water vapor, they saw methane.  
 

When did executions go from being functional example-setting to being more humane in method?

Annulla Linders, a University of Cincinnati sociologist, examined newspaper accounts of 19th and 20th century Ohio executions to put more 'scientific' executions in context.  

Linders used two late 19th century executions to illustrate the transition from hanging to electrocution and determined that central to the switch was the audience of executions - including journalists and physicians.