Printing out body parts? Cornell University researchers showed it is possible by creating a replacement ear using a 3-D printer and injections of living cells.

The work reported Wednesday is a first step toward one day growing customized new ears for children born with malformed ones, or people who lose one to accident or disease.

As Mozambique struggles to recover from the worst flooding in more than a decade, aid agencies are pioneering the use of mobile phones to distribute aid and, they hope, cut the cost of logistics in disaster zones.

Mozambican flood refugee Rose Makavela's cell phone beeps. A text message confirms she can get a free bottle of chlorine at a roadside stall near her refugee camp to prevent cholera.

Robotic surgery is increasingly being used for women's hysterectomies, adding at least $2,000 to the cost without offering much benefit over less high-tech methods, a study found.

The technique was used in just 0.5 percent of operations studied in 2007, but that soared to almost 10 percent by early 2010. Columbia University researchers analyzed data on more than 260,000 women who had their wombs removed at 441 U.S. hospitals for reasons other than cancer. The database covered surgeries performed through the first few months of 2010.

Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

German-designed implants aimed at restoring vision to patients blinded by retinal disease have succeeded in the second phase of trials, researchers reported on Wednesday.

The device was tested for up to nine months among nine people with retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease in which light receptors on the back of the eyeball degenerate and eventually cease to function.

Exposure to higher levels of fine particulates -- the airborne pollution that is an emerging problem in many Asian cities -- causes a sharp rise in deaths from heart attacks, a study published on Wednesday said.

Research published in the European Heart Journal pointed the finger at so-called PM2.5 pollution, which comprises tiny particles measuring 2.5 micrometers across or less.

Two years-old Momen Khaled al-Mohammed died on Tuesday from Meningitis after several Tripoli and northern hospitals refused to treat him because his family could not afford the cost of the care, the National News Agency reported on Tuesday.

"The child's parents went from one hospital to another but they were turned down for not being able to bear the cost of the treatment,” the NNA explained.

A rebel-held area of Syria has been hit by an outbreak of typhoid after power cuts hit water supplies and forced the population to turn to the Euphrates River, the U.N.'s health agency warned Tuesday.

Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the World Health Organization, told Agence France Presse that some 2,500 people had caught the disease in the country's northeast.

A person suffering from a SARS-like virus has died in Britain, hospital officials said on Tuesday, becoming the sixth fatality from the illness worldwide.

The patient was being treated for so-called novel coronavirus at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, and died on Sunday, the hospital said.

Children who watch excessive amounts of television are more likely to have criminal convictions and show aggressive personality traits as adults, a New Zealand study has found.

The University of Otago study tracked the viewing habits of about 1,000 children born in the early 1970s from when they were aged five to 15, then followed up when the subjects were 26 years old to assess potential impacts.