[Timesonline] A database of more than 13,000 chemical compounds identified as having the potential to act against the malaria parasite is to be freely distributed to the world’s scientists to encourage a cure.
In a unusual move in the highly-competitive field of global pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline has decided to publish all data it has on the compounds [...]

[Economist] MORE than a week after the earth convulsed beneath it, Haiti has still to plumb the depths of suffering and want. The numbers are still only more-or-less informed guesses, but their magnitude is grim: perhaps 200,000 killed, 250,000 more injured and some 3m in desperate need of help. The generosity of the world’s response [...]

[liveScience] Like babies that can be lulled to sleep with swaying, embryos also prefer to be rocked.
By gently rocking embryos while they grew during in vitro fertilization, scientists increased pregnancy rates in mice by more than 20 percent. The same rock-a-bye procedure could lead to more success for in vitro fertilization in humans, the researchers [...]

[BBC] A technique which may eventually remove the need for matched bone marrow transplants has been used in humans for the first time.
It is hoped that “master cells” taken from umbilical cords could be used on any patient without rejection.  The latest advance, published in the journal Nature Medicine, greatly multiplies the tiny number of [...]

[medscape] As healthcare reform legislation grinds its way through Congress, 2 articles published online January 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) advocate for one of its touchiest provisions — comparative-effectiveness research (CER).
In theory, CER sounds like a calm, academic subject: evaluate different treatment options for a given illness — drug A vs [...]

[Hastings Center] All of the health care reform proposals in Congress promise to substantially increase the number of people who get their insurance from sources other than an employer. This shift opens the door to an increase in civil litigation because existing federal laws, specifically the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), protect the employer-sponsored [...]

[People's Daily] When Xiao Luo arrived in south China’s Guangzhou city in May last year, the 30-year-old was struggling to raise her 6-year-old son alone in Hunan Province. Her husband never showed up soon after a business failure. “I was devastated that my husband abandoned us just like that, leaving dunners knocking on the door [...]