Washington, Nov 4: Children who live in areas with higher annual rainfall levels could be more likely to develop autism – a brain development disorder that is characterized by impaired social interaction and restricted behavior – claims a new study.

The results raise the possibility that an environmental trigger for autism may be associated with precipitation and may affect genetically vulnerable children.

Washington, Nov 4: While health officers are taking up various worldwide projects to educate people on HIV and AIDS, a new study has shown that two-thirds of families with an HIV-infected parent have fears of HIV transmission in the home.

The collaborative study by researchers from UCLA, the RAND Corp., Harvard University and Children''s Hospital Boston has claimed that such fears originate mainly from lack of adequate information about the spread of the disease.

Washington, Nov 4: While hip resurfacing is considered to be the modern day alternative for total hip replacement, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have suggested that the procedure is not ideal for everyone - and a patient''s age and gender is the key to the operation''s success.

For the study, the scientists examined data for 537 hip resurfacing surgeries performed in the U. S. using a hip resurfacing device, called the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing implant, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),

They found that the majority of serious complications occurred in women of all ages and men over the age of 55.

Washington, Nov 4: A new study by researchers at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, has revealed that brains of individuals with major depressive disorder appear to react more strongly when anticipating pain and also display altered functioning of the neural network that modifies pain sensitivity.

"Chronic pain and depression are common and often overlapping syndromes," the authors said.

London, Nov 4 : Dispelling the myths surrounding homeopathy, a new research has revealed that claims made by scientists suggesting homeopathy does not have therapeutic effects are ‘seriously flawed’.

A 2005 review, published in The Lancet, of six trials of conventional medicine and 8 studies of homeopathy had revealed that homeopathic medicines are just placebo.

George Lewith, Professor of Health Research at Southampton University claims that the conclusions are ‘not’ reliable.

“The review gave no indication of which trials were analysed nor of the various vital assumptions made about the data,” the Lancet quoted Lewith, as saying.

Harare/Johannesburg - Most of the patients lay limp as corpses, on the ground in the open, some of them with their drip bags of saline solution suspended from tree branches. All 28 of them had been brought in during the day.

Flies hovered over a nearby overflowing garbage bin and there was a pool of vomit, almost certainly brimming with the cholera pathogen, near the entrance to the cholera isolation area.