After first hearing tales of a white giraffe in Tanzania in 1993, Charles Foley of the Wildlife Conservation Society recently snapped this photo of the legendary animal.What do an African researcher and the fictional character Captain Ahab have in common? Both were searching for a legendary white beast, and whereas Ahab searched for his white whale, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Charles Foley sought—and finally found—his white giraffe.

Some 12.3 percent of all babies -- 499,008 infants -- were born prematurely (less than 37 weeks gestation) in 2003, according to the report released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That's up from 12.1 percent (or about 480,000 babies) in 2002 -- and an increase of more than 30 percent since the government began tracking premature births in 1981. The prematurity rate was 9.4 in 1981; it has increased every year since then except for slight dips in 1992 and 2000.

A new website with a Global Information System will provide valuable information for assessing environmental hazards caused by Hurricane Katrina. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health, created the website to provide the most up-to-date data to public health and safety workers on contaminants in flood waters, infrastructure and industry maps, as well as demographic information for local populations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the tentative approval of zidovudine oral solution, a generic version of a child-friendly oral solution to help keep AIDS virus from reproducing.

Analysis of a key protein in different subtypes of avian flu viruses shows that resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine in H5N1 occurs worldwide, but is especially prevalent in China, according to St. Jude

Resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine is spreading more rapidly among avian influenza viruses of H5N1 subtype in Southeast Asia than in North America, according to the study done by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science has established a program to assist scientists displaced by the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

After a barren period when very few therapies were introduced for neglected diseases, which kill around 3m people a year and cause the loss of the equivalent of 92m years' of healthy life, there are now over 60 drug research projects underway.