Some 40,000 famine-hit people have fled to the Somali capital Mogadishu over the past month in search of food and water, the U.N. refugees agency said Tuesday.

"Over the past month, UNHCR figures show that nearly 40,000 Somalis displaced by drought and famine have converged on Mogadishu in search of food, water, shelter and other assistance," said Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

A lethal bat-borne horse virus has been detected in a dog for the first time, authorities in Australia said on Tuesday, prompting fears it has jumped species.

"This is the first time outside of a laboratory that an animal other than a flying fox or a horse, or a human, has been confirmed with Hendra virus infection," Queensland state Chief Veterinary Officer Rick Symons said.

Again and again, 12-year-old Brianna Bowens cautiously pokes the human eyeball. On purpose.

The donated eye is tougher than you'd think. It takes a few slices with a sharp scalpel to pierce the white part — the sclera, she learns — and eventually remove the cornea in front.

German pharmaceutical group Bayer said on Monday that its anti-coagulant drug Xarelto, also known as Rivaroxaban, had proved itself effective in preventing strokes in a Japanese study.

A Bayer statement said that phase 3 tests of the treatment showed it was as effective as warfarin, a leading blood thinner also used by people that could suffer strokes following surgery.

An experimental drug designed to fit a DNA patch in a flawed gene has cleared an important hurdle in tests on boys struck by a tragic muscle-wasting disease, a British study on Monday says.

The condition, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), occurs among roughly 1 one in 3,500 males.

Eating used to be so simple. If you liked it and could afford it, down the hatch it went. Yum-yum, end of story.

But the days of carefree consumption of food, alas, are a thing of the past, especially for meat lovers.

Scientists have found a new contributor to male infertility, a protein that is supposed to coat sperm to help them swim to an egg, unless that coating goes missing.

About 20 percent of men may harbor gene mutations that leave their sperm coat-free and thus lower their fertility, an international research team reported.

A ban on sales of loose cigarettes and tobacco advertising went into effect Thursday in Colombia, the health ministry said.

The clampdown is part of an anti-tobacco law approved by Congress in June 2009, following a ban on smoking in enclosed public places in May 2008.

An inherited form of Alzheimer's disease is likely detectable up to 20 years before loss of memory and impaired thinking appear, according to a study released Wednesday.

Measurable changes in brain chemistry show up years before these signature symptoms of the degenerative brain disease set in, researchers reported at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Paris.

Male circumcision, an operation being promoted in Africa to help prevent HIV infection, boosts men's sexual pleasure, according to a study presented at the conference on AIDS medicine winding up here on Wednesday.

The probe is one of a panoply into the medical and psychological impacts of the fast-growing circumcision campaign.