A newly-identified virus may be responsible for the deaths of three Victorians who received organs from the same donor in December.

Victoria's Acting Chief Health Officer Dr John Carnie said there was no evidence the virus represented a public health risk and its presence in these Victorian recipients is thought to be a world-first occurrence.

A naturally occurring compound found in many fruits and vegetables as well as red wine, selectively kills leukemia cells in culture while showing no discernible toxicity against healthy cells, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. These findings, which were published online March 20 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and will be in press on May 4, offer hope for a more selective, less toxic therapy for leukemia.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a hormonal system that defends against stress, starvation and illnesses. New findings of alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol secretion in alcoholic patients, which reflect changes in the HPA axis, prompt recommendations that alcoholics avoid excessive stress – both physical and psychological – during early abstinence.

A wide variety of public policies affect alcohol purchases, consumption, and traffic fatalities, The two alcohol-control policies that have been most-clearly demonstrated to reduce youth consumption and traffic deaths are raising the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) and raising beer taxes. Researchers have evaluated the independent effectiveness of these and many other policies. A new study finds that the effectiveness of any particular policy depends on what other policies are also in place.

Researchers and clinicians already know that alcohol abuse and/or dependence can lead to severe and potentially irreversible brain damage. It is also known that women, when compared to men, seem to become more "damaged" by chronic alcohol abuse within a shorter period of drinking and with less overall consumption. A new study shows that female alcoholics may also sustain greater cognitive damage than male alcoholics.

For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neanderthals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neanderthals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them.

As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus' opinion, have shown obvious Neanderthal ancestry.