A UN-sponsored report released Wednesday revealed fifteen million babies, or one in 10 babies around the world are born premature every year, and 1.1 million of those infants die. Premature birth is the leading cause of death for newborn infants and is on the rise globally, said the report led by the March of Dimes, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn (and) Child Health, Save the Children and the World Health Organization. The study defined preterm birth as occurring befo...

At least once a week forty-five percent of Americans fall asleep somewhere outside their bed, a survey by a mattress industry group found on Tuesday.

Men are more likely than women to nod off away from their beds, according to the nationwide survey of 1,000 adults for the Better Sleep Council, which Tuesday declared May to be “Better Sleep Month.”

One in 10 respondents acknowledged dozing off at work, it said. Seven percent fell asleep at church, six percent on public tra…

A simple and cheap device that is used to monitor blood oxygen can help newborn babies with tragic heart flaw, say researchers.

Congenital heart flaws account for between three and 7.5 percent of all infant deaths, but surgery greatly improves the chances of survival, especially if the problem is detected at the earliest stages.

Doctors led by Shakila Thangaratinam of Queen Mary University of London looked at published research into pulse oximetry, in which a small m…

A problem that can badly interfere with sleep is the urge felt by elders to get up in the night to urinate and scientists have pinpointed a protein that helps explain why the elderly have to get up in the night often to urinate. Deficient levels of protein called connexin43 trick the bladder into believing that it is full, which sends a "must urinate" warning to the brain, they report on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Connexin43 is part of a cascade of prot...

A review of the US database of clinical studies released on Tuesday found most clinical trials for cancer, heart disease and mental health too small to offer adequate medical evidence. The analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association was led by experts at Duke University in collaboration with the US Food and Drug Administration. That partnership, known as the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), examined more than 96,000 studies registered as o...

New Facebook tool allows users to share their organ donor status with their friends. This initiative helps spread awareness of organ donation. Members of Facebook in the United States and Britain can now indicate that they are organ donors on their timelines, and if they are not donors, they can find links to official organ donation registries and instantly enroll.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the initiative and became one of the first Facebook users to sign up to …

American health officials are worried over the increasing rates of prescription painkiller abuse among expectant mothers which has spiked the rate of babies born with opiate addiction by nearly three times in the last decade.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a five-fold increase in maternal use of painkillers from 2000 to 2009, rising from 1.19 cases per 1,000 births to 5.63 per 1,000 annually.

Not all babies — between 60-80 p…

Prenatal exposure to pesticide harms kids’ brain, reveals study.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined New York City pregnant mothers who were tested for exposure to chlorpyrifos, or CPF, which is widely used for pest control in farms and public spaces.

The women in the study, which included 369 subjects total, took part prior to 2001 when CPF was banned from household use in the United States, though the chemical continues to be …

Drug-resistant malaria emerging in Africa, warn scientists.

Researchers in London found resistance to artemether in test tube analysis of blood from 11 of 28 patients who had fallen ill after travelling in countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa — what they said was a “statistically significant” result.

Artemether is one of the most effective drugs in the artemisinin group most commonly used in malaria cocktails known as ACTs.

“Resistance in a test tube …

Budget cuts linked to the ongoing debt crisis in Europe has forced Spain to scrap health benefits, including providing life saving treatment, for illegal immigrants.

Carmen Maria, a 33-year-old woman from Nicaragua who arrived in the country in 2010, has no legal ID in Spain but has benefitted from free health coverage for her illness nonetheless.

She has been working as a cleaner and despite failing to obtain residency she was able to enjoy the same health care as any le…

Clive Palmer, one of Australia’s richest men, has revealed intention for a 21st century version of the Titanic to be built in China, with her maiden voyage from England to New York set for 2016.

Palmer, a self-made mining billionaire, said he has commissioned state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to construct Titanic II with exactly the same dimensions as its predecessor.

“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have stat…

Around 2,500 people marched in a gay pride parade in Tokyo. The crowd, mainly from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, as well as their supporters and sex workers, paraded through the capital’s entertainment and shopping district of Shibuya.

Waving rainbow-coloured flags and banners, foreign and Japanese campaigners marched in colourful carnival and samurai warrior outfits.

It was the first parade organised by Tokyo Rainbow Pride, a private o…

A gene that inhibits the spread of pancreatic cancer tumours has been discovered by scientists. This key finding paves way for targeted treatment of one of the deadliest forms of the disease.

After discovering the gene dubbed USP9X at work in a study of pancreatic cancer in mice, the international research team found it also played a role in humans.

“We looked in human tumour specimens and we found that it was missing in a fraction of patients — the patients that …

On a cosy Sunday lunchtime in Las Vegas, Justin gives the impression he is going to curl up and drop dead. He has a monster hangover after drinking for two days solid. But help, he hopes, is at hand.

The 38-year-old from Seattle is among the first customers trying out a new service, “Hangover Heaven”, which promises to “cure” his throbbing head, sweaty pallor and general feeling of death, all within 45 minutes.

“I knew I was going to drink too much,” Justin, an aeronautic…

Road safety was the main focus as thousands of cyclists staged a protest near the Colosseum in Rome.

“Policy in this country is made for drivers,” said Alberto Fiorillo, one of the organisers of the initiative timed to coincide with protests in London and Edinburgh as part of a Cities Fit for Cycling initiative launched by The Times.

“There’s a civil war going on on the roads,” said Paolo Bellino. “This is a necessity that has been put off for too long. In the Netherlands…

Eye-catchy friends will catapult you to more popularity on Facebook, especially if you are a woman, states a new study that takes Charles Darwin into the domain of cyber networking. The findings show that signs of reproductive fitness sway our decisions about friendship, Dutch researcher Piet Kommers told AFP. "People are attracted by other people who look very healthy, happy and productive in a sexual sense. That is an accepted evolutionary law," he said. "Th...

Malaysia’s Legoland theme park, the first of its kind in Asia, is all set to open up months ahead of schedule in September.

Siegfried Boerst, general manager of Legoland Malaysia, said more than 35,000 annual passes had already been sold for the park featuring more than 40 roller coasters, race cars and other attractions in southern Johor state.

Of those, more than one third had been sold in neighbouring Singapore.

About one million people are expected to visi…

A top scientist has received permission from the Dutch government to publish a research paper in the United States on a mutant killer flu virus.

“Deputy Minister Henk Bleker approved a permit for the publication of the research done by professor Ron Fouchier on the H5N1 bird flu virus,” his spokeswoman Cindy Heijdra told AFP.

Dutch approval comes after a panel of US science and security experts last month said two papers on the deadly flu should be published in the US-bas…

A nationwide survey suggests that girls are more likely to text while driving than boys in the United States. This has taken place despite widespread youth awareness on the perils of distracted driving.

Fully two-thirds of the 2,012 young drivers aged 15 to 21 who took part in the online survey rated themselves to be “very safe” drivers, with almost every one else describing themselves as somewhat safe.

But a large number acknowledged that they engaged in distracted drivi…

Rio de Janeiro declares dengue epidemic after diagnosing more than 50,000 cases of the mosquito-borne infection.

“We have a plan focused on the epidemic and we continue to be in a state of alert,” Hans Dohmann, the city’s health secretary, said late Tuesday, adding that the number of cases had surpassed 300 per 100,000 residents per month.

State-run Agencia Brasil meanwhile reported that 517 people had been struck with the disease last week alone.

The sta…

Singapore is one of Asia’s most exhaustive energy users, from the bone-chilling air conditioning that pumps through malls and offices to lights that burn all night.

Nearly all electricity used by the industrialised island is produced by burning fossil fuels, which in 2010 contributed to the largest carbon footprint per head in the Asia-Pacific region, according to conservation group the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

South Korea and third-placed Japan follow close behin…

Researchers at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon have revealed that the initial reports from the ongoing trials for a new antimalarial drug are encouraging and they expect to apply for licensing in the near future. "These preliminary results are relatively encouraging and lead us to believe... that we could have something licensed," Dr Jose Fernandez said in Libreville at an event marking World Malaria Day. He said the drug had been in the final of three clinical trial ...

Fresh illicit drugs are surfacing on the European Union market at a rate of almost one a week, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) conveyed on Thursday. In 2011, a record 49 new drugs were identified, up from 41 reported in 2010, the largest number of new substances ever reported. The Lisbon-based centre attributed the increase in the number of new drugs -- mostly synthetic cannabinoids and synthetic cathinones -- to the fact they could ea...

The G-spot, a supposed pleasure center on the front interior wall of the vagina, has been claimed to have been identified by a US gynecologist.

In a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine on Wednesday, Adam Ostrzenski said he has confirmed the presence of the G-spot after extracting a tiny “well-delineated sac structure” from inside an 83-year-old cadaver.

“This study confirmed the anatomic existence of the G-spot, which may lead to a better understanding and i…

European Union regulators approved Novartis drug Signifor as a treatment for Cushing's disease. The group said it was the first time the EU has approved a drug to treat the rare disease, which is caused by a tumour or growth on the pituitary gland and is generally treated surgically. "The European Commission has approved Signifor (pasireotide) for the treatment of adult patients with Cushing's disease for whom surgery is not an option or for whom surgery has failed,"...

Following a new case of mad cow disease in California US beef sales was briefly suspended and now a major South Korean retailer said Thursday it has resumed sales of US beef.

Homeplus, one of the three largest discount chains and a local unit of Britain’s Tesco, ended the nine-hour suspension on Wednesday night, its spokeswoman told AFP.

“We resumed displaying and selling US beef at our stores… as the government said there was little possibility that the beef contaminat…

No strong evidence that mobile phones harm health, says study.

Studies have not demonstrated that the use of mobiles causes brain tumours or any other cancer, according to the review by the Health Protection Agency (HPA)’s independent advisory group on non-ionising radiation.

But it said it was important to monitor evidence as the use of mobile phones has become widespread only recently.

The HPA also recommends that excessive use of mobile phones by child…

Child development experts are worried that babies are increasingly playing with grown up toys like iPhone and iPad.

Twenty-two-month-old George sits on a tiny blue chair, at a baby-sized desk, playing with a grown-up toy — an iPad, sign of a powerful trend that has set alarm bells ringing among child development experts.

Leaning over the tablet, the little Parisian finger-stabs the duck icon on “Moo Box”, an application with animal images that let out moos, oinks and bar…

Baclofen – new anti-alcoholism drug cleared for use in France.

AFSSAPS, the regulator that authorises drugs, said that while the drug Baclofen had not been definitively shown to be efficient in the treatment of alcoholism, it had shown “clinical benefits in some patients”.

It recommended in a statement that Baclofen — the lab name for a medication branded as Kemstro, Lioresal and Gablofen — should be considered on a “case by case” basis.

The history of …

On Tuesday The World Health Organisation hailed major gains in the anti-malaria fight, one of the key causes of death in the developing world, but cautioned global access to treatment remains elusive.

“In the past 10 years, increased investment in malaria prevention and control has saved more than a million lives,” the UN organisation’s chief Margaret Chan said in a statement.

“But we are still far from achieving universal access to life-saving malaria interventions.” br…