Babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have a cleft palate or lip as those whose mothers didn't, according to research results released today.

Education has found its way onto the soccer fields of North Carolina – in the form of a social experiment that may have all the right ingredients to change the direction of Latino health in the United States.

A PhD student at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research has uncovered an important piece in the puzzle of how insulin works, a problem that has plagued researchers for more than 50 years. This finding brings us one step closer to explaining exactly how insulin prompts fat and muscle cells to absorb glucose.

It seems that our brain can correct speech errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behaviour. Niels Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, NWO researchers in Leiden, made this discovery while studying how the brain reacts to verbal errors. This research can contribute to improvements in the treatment of people who have problems with speaking or in understanding language.

A protein found in the virulent avian influenza virus strain called H5N1 forms tiny tubules in which it "hides" the pieces of double-stranded RNA formed during viral infection, which otherwise would prompt an antiviral immune response from infected cells, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in an online report in the journal Nature.

Scientists have identified the first gene that is associated with a common childhood language disorder, known as specific language impairment (SLI). The gene – CNTNAP2 – has also been recently implicated in autism, and could represent a crucial genetic link between the two disorders.

A new study published in Journal of Neuroimaging shows that MRI scans used on multiple sclerosis (MS) patients to determine if the disease has affected gray matter in the brain can identify those at-risk for progression of disability.