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Women who take oral contraceptive pills may get an inaccurate and higher rate of false positive results if their physicians use a specific kind of Pap test. Pathologists at Ohio State University re-checked the Pap smears of 84 women whose initial Pap results were diagnosed as abnormal using the ThinPrep testing method. All women were on an oral contraceptive. In each case, the cells lining the cervix looked like cells infected with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer.

The quality of life of children with headaches is comparable to that of children with such serious conditions as cancer and rheumatic diseases, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In fact, the study shows that children with headaches appear to be more affected in emotional functioning and school performance than children with other serious, chronic medical conditions, according to lead author Scott W Powers, PhD, co-director of the Cincinnati Children’s Headache Center –one of the largest pediatric headache centers in the world.

The eastern slopes of the Andean Cordillera, in the Equador province of Zamora-Chinchipe, bordering Peru, form part of the Amazon piedmont. This region of undulating topography, situated between 500 and 2000 m altitude, had not up to now been the focus of any systematic archaeological research. This area was occupied in historical times (from the end of the first millenium) by groups belonging to the Jivaro linguistic family, the Bracamoros, who were probably the inhabitants the Spanish conquistadors encountered in the XVIth century.

A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher and her colleagues have found that people with less common types of proteins on their white blood cells seem to mount a better immune response against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – the virus that causes AIDS – and tend to fight progression of the disease better than people with common white blood cell proteins.

Immunology researchers have demonstrated that alcohol promotes the proliferation of hepatitis C virus in human liver cells. By studying molecular mechanisms in cell cultures, the researchers help explain the role of alcohol in aggravating hepatitis C infection and interfering with drug treatment for the infection.

Scientists have discovered that in vitro fertilization (IVF) appears to be associated with a rare combination of birth defects characterized by excessive growth of various tissues. After studying data from a national registry of patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS), the researchers found that IVF-initiated conception was six times more common than in the general population.