The HPV vaccine, sold as Gardasil in the U.S., is intended to prevent four strains of the human papillomavirus, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world. The vaccine also prevents against cervical cancer. While the vaccine represents a significant public health advance, a new article in the Journal of Law, Medicine&Ethics suggests that it is premature for states to currently mandate the HPV vaccine as a condition for school attendance.

Gail Javitt, J.D., M.P.H., Deena Berkowitz, M.D., M.P.H., and Lawrence O. Gostin, J.D., LL.D., review the scientific evidence supporting Gardasil's approval and the legislative actions in the states that followed and raise several concerns about state mandates for HPV vaccination. 

A team of Princeton University scientists say they have discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution.  They say the research appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection and provides a new perspective on evolution, the scientists said.

Blood levels of resistin, a hormone produced by fat cells, can independently predict an individual's risk of heart failure, cardiologists at Emory University School of Medicine have found.

Their findings were presented Nov. 12 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in New Orleans.

"This is one of the strongest predictors of new-onset heart failure we've been able to find, and it holds up even when you control for other biomarkers and risk factors including high blood pressure and diabetes," says Javed Butler, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine and director of heart failure research at Emory University School of Medicine.

Evidence that global warming is causing the worldwide declines of amphibians may not be as conclusive as previously thought, according to biologists whose findings contradict two widely held views and could help reveal what is killing the frogs and toads - and aid in their conservation.

Studies suggest that more than 32 percent of amphibian species are threatened and more than 43 percent face a steep decline in numbers.

"We are currently in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event," said Peter Hudson, the Willaman professor of biology at Penn State and co-author of the research study. "And amphibians are bearing the brunt of the problem."

Scientists from the universities of Leicester and Cambridge and from the British Geological Survey have published new research in the journal Geology this month shedding new light on a 500-million year old mystery.

The 500 million year-old fossils of the Burgess Shale in Canada, discovered over a century ago, still provide one of the most remarkable insights into the dawn of animal life. The beautiful silvery fossils show the true nature of the life of that time, just after the "Cambrian explosion" of animal life. 

There's a perception that people who immigrate to the US from China, or whose parents did, the so-called "Chinese-Americans", are all wildly successful and well educated. And they are, unless they are the least educated. They are also confronted by a "glass ceiling," unable to realize full occupational stature and success to match their efforts, according to a new study from the University of Maryland.

The returns on Chinese Americans' investment in education and "sweat equity" are "generally lower than those in the general and non-Hispanic White population," says the report, "A Chinese American Portrait." It adds that, on average, Chinese American professionals in the legal and medical fields earn as much as 44 percent less than their White counterparts.