The cell-signaling molecule Akt is a primary trigger that leads malignant melanomas on the skin’s surface to begin growing vertically beneath the skin and turn into deadly invasive cancers, scientists have found. Understanding this key molecular difference between radial melanomas that spread on the surface of the skin and melanomas that grow vertically and invasively could provide new targets for the development of drugs to treat individuals with advanced stage melanomas. [click link for full article]

The Baltimore Sun on Sunday examined the importance of “carefully crafting messages” to “buil[d] consensus” for support or opposition to various types of stem cell research. According to the Sun, both supporters and opponents “work to wield often ambiguous — or particularly pointed — words in the hopes it will help sell certain messages. [click link for full article]

Even miniscule amounts of chromium 6 can cause cancer. Blame that do-gooder nutrient, vitamin C.Brown University researchers have discovered that naturally occurring vitamin C reacts inside human lung cells with chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium, and causes massive DNA damage. [click link for full article]

The Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative’s Pediatric AIDS Corps in its first sixth months has increased the number of children it provides with access to antiretroviral drugs by more than one-third, the Houston Chronicle reports. [click link for full article]

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has awarded a $600,000 contract to Columbia University-Harlem Health Center to provide clinical and counseling services related to reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections for young women, the [click link for full article]

Almost 60 percent of pacemaker patients had undiagnosed sleep apnea - possibly contributing to their heart disease - researchers reported in a small study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.Moreover, more than 21 percent of the patients had severe sleep apnea, characterized by 30 or more periods of interrupted breathing each hour during sleep, said Patrick Lévy, M.D., Ph.D. [click link for full article]

Individuals with one or more parents who survive to age 85 or older may have fewer risk factors for heart disease in middle age, according to a report in the March 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.Previous research has suggested that the children and siblings of centenarians, who live to age 100 or more, also have longer-than-average life expectancies, according to background information in the article. [click link for full article]

Washington Post columnist Amy Joyce on Sunday examined recent actions by some companies — “mostly large, influential ones” — to “replace informal arrangements to get women back at work after having a child with written policies and systems.” According to Joyce, Booz Allen Hamilton, [click link for full article]

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) on Monday in Pittsburgh, Pa., held a congressional field hearing to increase support for a House bill that would require health insurers to provide the same level of coverage for treatment of mental illnesses and substance abuse as they provide for physical illnesses, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (Fahy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3/13). [click link for full article]

Sexual victimization can mean several things — verbal coercion to have sex with an intimate partner, rape by a stranger, a woman fondled in a bar or forced intercourse when a woman is too intoxicated to consent or object.Researchers at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions report that 18 percent of young women recruited into a study experienced sexual victimization in a two-year period. [click link for full article]