Want to be slim? Cut your blood supply

Scientists have found a new way to make the obese slim again - by cutting off the blood supply to the layers of fat that are a health hazard for hundreds of millions of people.

Sleepless in academia

Student health, potty professors and weblogs. David Cohen trawls the web for the latest offbeat news in the world of international higher learning

The tissue issue

The human tissue bill has provoked anger but what specific science would be derailed? Kirsty Scott investigates

Obesity research starved

A shortage of research funds is crippling attempts to find a cure for obesity, a leading scientist said yesterday.

Immunity is everything

The supposed need to boost our bodies' defences is the defining illness of our age, writes Vivienne Parry.