New "natural" boob jobs coming up: "A fully functional breast has been grown from a stem cell found in female mice, in a study that promises insights into recurring breast tumours and a fresh approach to plastic surgery.... If the findings prove applicable to people, scientists hope to develop drugs that target abnormal breast stem cells to eliminate not only tumours but also the source tissue from which they arise. In the longer term, it may also be possible to use mammary stem cells to grow breast tissue for reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, or even for use in breast enhancement operations. In the study, which is published today in the journal Nature, a team led by Jane Visvader, of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, isolated mammary stem cells from the breast pads of female mice for the first time. They transplanted one of these cells into the mammary fat pad of a living female mouse from which all breast tissue had been removed. The cell divided and eventually gave rise to all the normal types of cell found in the mouse breast, and the gland worked normally to produce milk".


Vaccine against the shits: "Two new vaccines could cut the toll of a virus that infects almost all children by the age of three. Rotavirus, which causes gastroenteritis, kills at least half a million children under the age of five every year in poor countries. In Britain, thousands of children need hospital treatment for the infection every year, though it is seldom fatal. The symptoms are vomiting, fever, stomach pain and diarrhoea. In severe cases, it causes severe dehydration and death if left untreated. Trials of two new vaccines, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that the infection may be conquered. Rotateq, made by Merck, prevented 98 per cent of severe disease, while GlaxoSmithKline's Rotarix prevented 85 per cent".