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Peek into Brain Shows How Kids Learn Math Skills

At some point, children quit counting your fingers and just know the answer. Now scientists have put youngsters into brain scanners to find out why, and watched how the brain reorganizes itself as kids learn math.

The take-home advice: drilling your kids on simple addition and multiplication may pay off.

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Disabilities in Kids Rise; Not Physical Problems

Disabilities among U.S. children have increased slightly, with a bigger rise in mental and developmental problems in those from wealthier families, a 10-year analysis found.

Disadvantaged kids still bear a disproportionate burden.

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Camps Take Cystic Fibrosis Patients Surfing

For three of Rob and Paulette Montelone's five kids, spending the summer surfing is more than just a fun activity. It could also extend their lives.

The Montelone siblings are part of a growing number of people with cystic fibrosis who are taking advantage of the health benefits that come with surfing.

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Witnesses: Patients Flee in Attack on Monrovia Ebola Unit

Armed men claiming that "there's no Ebola" in Liberia raided a quarantine center for the deadly disease in Monrovia overnight, prompting at least 20 patients infected with the deadly virus to flee, a witness said Sunday.

"They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone," said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams.

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Kenya Bars Travelers from Worst-Hit Ebola Countries

Kenya is closing its borders to travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst hit by the Ebola outbreak, the government said Saturday.

Kenya Airways also announced that it would suspend its flights to Freetown and Monrovia when the government travel bar on passengers comes into effect on Wednesday.

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Nigeria Trains 800 Volunteers in Scramble to Stop Ebola

Nigeria on Saturday said it has trained 800 volunteers to fight Ebola as fears rose that the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly disease could spread across Africa's most populous nation.

Authorities in Nigeria's megacity Lagos last week appealed for volunteers to make up for a shortage of medical personnel because of a six-week doctors' strike over pay.

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Woman Tested for Ebola in Scotland

A woman who fell ill at an immigration facility centre in Scotland is being tested for the Ebola virus, health officials said Friday.

It is thought to be "highly unlikely" that the woman, who British media reported is from Sierra Leone, would test positive, a Lanarkshire health authority spokesman said.

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Aid Group: W. Africa Ebola Outbreak Like 'Wartime'

The Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people in West Africa could last another six months, the Doctors Without Borders charity group said Friday. One aid worker acknowledged that the true death toll is still unknown.

New figures released by the World Health Organization showed that Liberia has recorded more Ebola deaths — 413 — than any of the other affected countries.

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Xinhua: China Gang Forced Children to Donate Blood

Police arrested seven people in northwest China allegedly involved in a scheme that forced school children to donate blood, state media reported.

The arrested are the deputy chief of a blood centre operated by a company in Gansu province, whose surname was given as Huang, and six jobless men, the official Xinhua news agency reported late Friday.

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U.N. to Feed Up to One Million People Hit by Ebola

The United Nations is to step up food aid to reach up to a million people affected by the Ebola outbreak wreaking havoc in west Africa, the World Food Program (WFP) said Friday.

With states of emergency and severe restrictions on movement imposed in the three worst-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the U.N. agency is bringing in its own aircraft to transport its personnel.

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