Autism researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing have found a link between low birthweight and children diagnosed with autism, reporting premature infants are five times more likely to have autism than children born at normal weights.

The South China Center for Innovative Pharmaceuticals, Sun Yat-Sen University, and BGI, the world's largest genomic organization, announced that they were among the research organizations from China, US and UK comprising an international research group that completed the genome sequence and comparison of two non-human primate animal models - Chinese rhesus macaque and cynomolgus. The study is published today online in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

There are more bacteria living on our skin and in our gut than cells in our body. We need them. But until now no-one knew how the immune system could tell that these bacteria are harmless.