A new blood test could allow doctors to predict which ovarian cancer patients will respond to particular types of treatment. The test could be developed and used in hospitals within the next few years.  

It would mean medics could see which patients could benefit from blood vessel-targeting drugs - such as bevacizumab - in addition to conventional therapy. Meanwhile, others who are not going to benefit would be spared the time and side effects associated with having the drug.  

The test would also help to reduce the cost to the NHS. Ovarian cancer has seen little increase in survival rates over the last few decades and scientists are seeking new treatment strategies to improve the standard approach of surgery and chemotherapy.

A gene patent means only the patent-holder has the right to undertake research and development involving that gene.Credit: Shutterstock

By Rodney Scott, University of Newcastle

The Federal Court’s decision that gene patenting is permitted in Australia will have ramifications for all gene patents, even though the case involved only one gene associated with breast cancer.

A gene patent means only the patent-holder has the right to undertake research and development involving that gene. These patents generally last for 20 years.

The NSA is not allowed to gather intel on US citizens (at least not without a FISA court order), but there is an obscure Reagan era loophole--Executive Order 12333, or Twelve Triple Three--that allows NSA to scoop up data on millions of Americans and store these data (about 350 billion searchable records—that’s “billion” with a “B”) for up to five years.

Finland is the country to beat. Kimmo Brandt/EPA

By Daniel Muijs, University of Southampton

There has been a recent explosion of interest in the effectiveness of education systems around the world, largely driven by international studies that compare the performance of large samples of students from a wide range of countries.

If Americans adopted the recommendations the USDA's "Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010," diet-related greenhouse gas emissions would increase 12 percent, according to scholars, and if Americans reduced their daily caloric intake to the recommended level of about 2,000 calories while shifting to a healthier diet, greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by only 1 percent.

What must happen is that Americans must switch to no animal products, say Martin Heller and Gregory Keoleian of the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems, who looked at the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of about 100 foods, as well as the potential effects of shifting Americans to a diet recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Millions of Americans are thought to experience mental illness in a given year, and the impacts of mental illness are undoubtedly felt by millions more in the form of family members, friends, and coworkers.

Though there are concerns about a lack of evidence-based treatment in mental health, it is better than doing nothing - yet nothing is what up to 40% of individuals with serious mental illness get, according to a new report in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. They cite stigma as a significant barrier to care for many individuals with mental illness.

Dengue is a serious illness diminished in importance in much of the developed world. Some efforts evolve around genetic modification while other efforts work on a vaccine.

Researchers say that magma columns in the Earth's interior can cause continental breakup – under the right circumstances.

In some parts of the Earth, material rises upwards like a column from the boundary layer of the Earth's core and the lower mantle to just below the Earth's crust hundreds of kilometers above. Halted by the resistance of the hard crust and lithospheric mantle, the flow of material becomes wider, taking on a mushroom-like shape. Specialists call these magma columns mantle plumes or simply plumes.

Postmenopausal women who eat foods higher in potassium, like bananas, are less likely to have strokes and die than women who eat less potassium-rich foods, according to new research in Stroke.