Medical research

The ability to recognize faces is so important in humans that the brain appears to have an area solely devoted to the task: the fusiform gyrus. Brain imaging studies consistently find that this region of the temporal lobe becomes active when people look at faces. Skeptics have countered, however, that these studies show only a correlation, but not proof, that activity in this area is essential for face recognition. Now, thanks to the willingness of an intrepid patient, a new study provides the first cause-and-effect evidence that neurons in this area help humans recognize faces -- and only faces, not other body parts or objects.

An unusual collaboration between researchers and an epilepsy patient led to the discovery. Ron Blackwell, an engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., came to Stanford University in 2011 seeking better treatment for his epilepsy. He had suffered seizures since he was a teenager, and at age 47, his medication was becoming less effective. Stanford neurologist Josef Parvizi suggested some tests to locate the source of the seizures -- and suggested that it might be possible to eliminate the seizures by surgically destroying a tiny area of brain tissue where they occurred.

WASHINGTON - In a move that signals the United States is further backing away from medical research with chimpanzees, the National Institutes of Health will retire 110 of its 563 research chimpanzees over the next year, the institute’s director, Francis S. Collins, said Friday.

In a potential breakthrough for cancer research, Stanford University immunologists discovered they can shrink or even get rid of a wide range of human cancers by treating them with a single antibody.

ATLANTA — One child out of 88 in the U.S. is believed to have autism or a related disorder, an increase in the rate attributed largely to wider screening.

Advocacy groups seized on the new number as further evidence that autism research and services should get more attention.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Thanks to treatment by researchers at the University of Virginia Medical Center, the world's tallest man may have reached his peak.

It turns out plastic surgery really does make you look younger, one study has found -- on average, in the case of one Canadian doctor's patients, 7.2 years younger.

Cesarean sections are often performed when a baby is going to be born early. Likewise, sometimes labor is induced when a woman's water breaks too early in the pregnancy. However, two new studies suggest that these common practices may, in fact, not benefit babies.