The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will start the phase II clinical trials of a vaccine for schistosomiasis, called 'Sm14 Vaccine.' The initiative is one of the health research and development projects prioritized by the World Health Organization (WHO), aiming to ensure the access of populations from developing countries to public health tools based on cutting edge technologies.

In a paper published in Science this week, Philip M. Fearnside of Brazil's National Institute for Research in Amazonia explains how the country's environmental licensing is under threat from proposed laws and constitutional amendments. These have jumped into the forefront as anti-environment politicians rush to exploit the opportunity offered by Brazil's current political turmoil. Legislators are eager to stimulate the country's economy, as by removing environmental and social restrictions on proposed development projects.

Long ago, one great ocean flowed between North and South America. When the Isthmus of Panama joined the continents, it also separated the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean. If this took place much earlier than the accepted date of 3 million years ago as recently asserted by some, the implications for both land and sea life would be revolutionary. A new paper in Science Advances firmly set the date at 2.8 million years ago.

The balmy waters of the Caribbean could turn into a deadly heat trap for countless tiny creatures. Authors of a new study conducted at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama discovered that microscopic sea urchin eggs and larvae may suffer stunting or death when the water temperature spikes just a couple of degrees above normal, adding to the impact of climate change in already warm tropical oceans.

In this study, an international research team reports the discovery that eight completely paraplegic patients, who have suffered a spinal cord lesion many years previously, have regained partial voluntary motor control and sensitivity of their legs after 12 months of training with brain-machine interfaces, including a brain-controlled exoskeleton. The patients also regained important degrees of bladder and bowel control. As a result, 50 percent of the patients have been clinically upgraded from complete to incomplete paraplegia.