What do laboratory mice at the University of Michigan Medical School have in common with millions of overweight Americans? Like many of us, these mice just can't stop eating.

Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center have found the strongest evidence yet that monkeys show the same keen 'social reflexes' that humans do -- shifting their attention in response to the direction of gaze of another individual. The researchers said their findings mean that monkeys can provide a critically important animal model of how the brain controls what humans pay attention to in social situations.

Our immune system protects us from disease, destroying invading microbes with a swarm of attacking cells. But it can also go haywire for no apparent reason, ganging up on normal tissues in our body and wreaking havoc.

Tuberculosis remains a major global health threat. Although more than 3 billion doses of the BCG vaccine have been administered to fight tuberculosis, the ability of the BCG vaccine to protect adults is very limited, as is its efficacy against newly emerging isolates.

Researchers have long considered tuberculosis, a bacterial respiratory disease that kills 3 million people each year, a relatively recent human affliction. But a new study in PLoS Pathogens suggests that the disease and the pathogens responsible are much older than previously thought.