Although syphilis is one of the oldest known diseases, most health professionals do not have access to the tests necessary to reliably diagnose it in its earliest and most infectious stage. A recent survey of infectious diseases specialists regarding the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis appears in the November 15, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Definitive diag...

Two in five at-risk American adults who would benefit from vaccination against seasonal flu are missing out on the protective shots because they believe they do not need them and are not inclined to be vaccinated. And among those who say they do intend to take up the vaccine, nearly half get around to it, according to Dr. Katharine Harris from the RAND Corporation in Arlington, USA, and her team. ...

Injecting botulinum toxin (botox) to treat intrinsic or allergic rhinitis may be a thing of the past as researchers have now shown that sponges soaked in botox are equally effective in treating the condition. The research, published in BioMed Central`s open access journal Head & Face Medicine, offers a potential needle-free treatment to the millions of people who suffer from rhinitis. Rainer L...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has unveiled a method for calibrating entire waveforms—graphical shapes showing how electrical signals vary over time—rather than just parts of waveforms as is current practice. The new method improves accuracy in calibrations of oscilloscopes, common test instruments that measure voltage in communications and electronics device...

Elderly cancer patients need a combination of treatments tailor-made to their specific needs to successfully combat the disease. The challenge is to boost their immune response to cancer vaccines, because like the rest of our organs, our immune system ages and gradually becomes less efficient as we get older. Dr. Joseph Lustgarten, from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in the US, reviews the ef...

An animal study at Purdue University has shown that adding ascorbic acid and sugar to green tea can help the body absorb helpful compounds and also demonstrates the effectiveness of a model that could reduce the number of animals needed for these types of studies. Mario Ferruzzi, associate professor of food science and nutrition, adapted a digestion model with human intestinal cells to show that a...

There is more to life satisfaction than money, and public policy programs aiming to tackle poverty need to move beyond simply raising people`s income to also improving their quality of life in other areas. These findings by Professor Mariano Rojas from Mexico`s Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales are published online in Springer`s journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life. The reducti...

Scientists warn that the world`s largest species of fruit bat, known as the "large flying fox," could be driven to extinction in Peninsular Malaysia at the current hunting rate allowed of around 22,000 every year. Without at least a temporary reprieve from hunting, the world`s largest species of fruit bat, Pteropus vampyrus or the "large flying fox", could be driven to extincti...

A team of French scientists have found the dose of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) that is "just right" for preventing cardiovascular disease in healthy men. In a research report appearing in the September 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, the scientists show that a 200 mg dose of DHA per day is enough to affect biochemical markers that reliably predict cardiovascular problems, such as t...

Levels of debt have been associated with an increased risk of being fat. Researchers blame the trend on the high price of healthy food, and a tendency for people worried by debt to comfort eat. Eva Münster, from the University of Mainz, Germany, worked with a team of researchers to study more than 9000 people, finding that 25% of the 949 people in debt were medically obese, compared to only 1...