A course of organised water aerobics has been shown to reduce the amount of pain-killing medication women request during labor. Research published in the journal Reproductive Health has shown that, as well as being safe, the gentle exercise has the benefit of making it easier to give birth.

Imagine you have two plants - one is a plant you'd like to keep around, like a crop, and the other is a pest of some kind that interferes with the growth of your crop. Now, imagine synthesizing 30,000 different candidates for an herbicide and spraying each one on a different plant - and only finding one that effectively kills the weed while preserving the life of your crop. Until recently, this incredibly inefficient method was the only way for the agrichemical industry to find new herbicides. Now, thanks to the boom in biological technology during the last 15 years or so, agrichemical companies are able to come up with far better predictions about the results of spraying an herbicide on a particular plant - adding a huge degree of elegance to the previous guess-and-check method.

In spring 2004, at the meeting of the Scientific Council of the Frombork-based Baltic Research Centre, Jerzy Gąssowski received an interesting challenge - find the remains of Nicolas Copernicus. 

To be sure, something was known of his death.   He had died in Poland at age 70, and he was buried at his church somewhere, but he died while his work was being printed so the man who theorized that the sun, rather than the Earth, is at the center of the universe, was not yet famous enough to merit a monument.    But the provost of the Frombork metropolitan church, bishop Doctor Jacek Jezierski, did not think the job impossible.

Neuroscientists at Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center have discovered a direct link between eye motions and the perception of illusory motion that solves a 200-year-old debate. 

Stephen Macknik, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology; Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience; Xoana G. Troncoso, PhD; and Jorge Otero-Millan; conducted a study based on the Enigma painting, a visual illusion in which rotational motion is seen within a stationary image. The artwork has been at the center of a debate over whether the brain or the eye is behind the perception of illusory motion. 

Gefitinib, also known as Iressa, the once-promising targeted therapy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, has proven as effective as chemotherapy as a second-line therapy for the disease with far fewer side effects, according to an international Phase III clinical trial, led by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

However, in contrast to earlier Iressa findings, the study showed that there was no additional survival benefit for patients who expressed an elevated level of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation.

A team of researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) has found that lactic acid is an important energy source for tumor cells. In further experiments, they discovered a new way to destroy the most hard-to-kill, dangerous tumor cells by preventing them from delivering lactic acid. 

A study published by researchers at Yeshiva University and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, strongly suggests that regular attendance at religious services reduces the risk of death by approximately 20 percent. The findings, published in Psychology and Health, were based on data drawn from participants who spanned numerous religious denominations.

Determining chronological age is easy - count forward from birth. Establishing physiological age, especially in humans, is purely subjective because it's based on how someone looks or functions. Research in nematode worms could lead to the development of human biomarkers for aging, allowing us to track how we're withstanding the tests of time.

Scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research say they have identified for the first time these  biomarkers of aging which are highly predictive of both chronological and physiological age.  Biomarkers are biochemical features that can be used to measure the progress of disease or the effects of treatment.

A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to an article published in the December issue of the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.

"Human metapneumovirus may be the second most common cause of lower respiratory infection in young children. Studies have shown that by the age of five, virtually all children have been exposed to the virus and re-infections appear to be common," said Professor Dr Fouchier. "We have identified sites on some virus proteins that we can monitor to help identify future dominant strains of the virus."

People who have lost the ability to interpret emotion after a severe brain injury can regain this vital social skill by being re-educated to read body language, facial expressions and voice tone in others, according to a new study.

The research, published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, reveals that appropriate training can result in significant gains in "emotional perception", which is crucial for successful social communication.

The study involved 18 participants recruited from an outpatient service at the Liverpool Hospital Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit, in Sydney, Australia. All had experienced a severe traumatic brain injury at least six months earlier and had significantly impaired ability to interpret emotions in others.