With the financial crisis still hanging over many countries, this year's World Health Report from the World Health Organization, "Health Systems Financing: The Path to Universal Coverage" is timely and relevant to the question of how to ensure that all people have access to health care services, without suffering financial hardship.

Engineers have developed a new type of microchip muscle stimulator implant that will enable people with paraplegia to exercise their paralyzed leg muscles. It is the first time that researchers have developed a device of this kind that is small enough to be implanted into the spinal canal and incorporates the electrodes and muscle stimulator in one unit. The implant is the size of a child's fingernail.

The College of Direct Support, an internet-based curriculum for direct-support professionals and managed in partnership by Elsevier/MC Strategies and the University of Minnesota's Research and Training Center, has introduced its latest offering in the form of a new genre of its online learning content. The new Learning Session is called "R&R Arcade: Direct Support Professionalism: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)."

"The recent international security alerts provide a timely reminder that surgeons could be called on at a moment's notice to deal with blast injuries" says consultant surgeon Jonothan Earnshaw, joint editor-in-chief of BJS, the British Journal of Surgery. BJS has just published two blast injury papers by military surgeons free online. They provide invaluable advice for civilian surgeons who could face the medical aftermath of a terrorist attack.

There are 27 species of bats identified in the Basque Country today. Twenty years ago there were hardly any records. This data reflects the fruitful work on the ecology and behavioral development of bats by the University of the Basque Country research team since the '90s.

A new study estimates that the global polio eradication initiative could provide net benefits of $40-50 billion, compared to a policy relying on routine vaccination alone. Analysis suggests the GPEI is an excellent investment from an economic perspective and highlights the importance of achieving eradication faster. The study, published in Vaccine, estimates the GPEI will prevent more than 8 million cases of paralytic polio, translating into significant savings from reduced treatment costs and gains in productivity.

Researchers from the Huntsman Cancer Institute have identified a previously undiscovered trigger mechanism that monitors whether a cell's nucleus has the proper structure for cell division to take place.

Children who experience a parental divorce are over twice as likely to suffer a stroke at some point in their lives, according to new research presented in New Orleans at the Gerontological Society of America's 63rd Annual Scientific Meeting.

In a study published in the current issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, the authors examine an influenza outbreak in a Hong Kong hospital and the possible role of aerosol transmission.

Infants are more efficient at digesting and utilizing nutritional components of milk than adults due to a difference in the strains of bacteria that dominate their digestive tracts. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and Utah State University report on genomic analysis of these strains in the November 2010 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology identifying the genes that are most likely responsible for this difference.

Fresh insight into how biological clocks adjust to having less sunlight in the winter could help us better understand the impact of jet lag and shift work.

Professor Amit Gefen of Tel Aviv University is conducting research into the theory that fat cells, like bone or muscle cells, are influenced by mechanical loads. By recreating the structure of fat cells using a newly developed computer method, professor Gefen can determine how much mechanical load can be tolerated by fat cells, and at what point the cells will begin to disintegrate. The research has direct applications in weight loss programs and the management of chronic diabetes.

To avoid some of the design challenges involved in creating micro-scale air vehicles that mimic the flapping of winged insects or birds, Georgia Tech researchers propose using flexible wings that are driven by a simple sinusoidal flapping motion.

Initial results from University of Miami professor Jerry Ault's annual fall bonefish census show that this year's count was down by 25 percent -- from an 8-year mean estimate of 316,805 bonefish to a new low of ~240,000 bonefish. Bonefish populations are a good indicators of overall coastal health, so careful monitoring of this fishery are warranted.

Researchers have determined the biological basis of your brain's ability to quickly switch from detecting an object moving in your direction to determining what the object is: neurons located at the beginning of the brain's sensory information pathway changing their level of simultaneous firing.