A decade-long research effort to uncover the environmental causes of breast cancer by studying both lab animals and a group of healthy U.S. girls has turned up some surprises, scientists say.

At the center of the investigation are 1,200 school girls who do not have breast cancer, but who have already given scientists important new clues about the possible origins of the disease.

Mothers in the United States who give birth to twins or triplets face soaring medical costs compared to those who have single children, said a study on Monday.

The medical expenses can be five times as high for twins and up to 20 times as high for triplets and other multiple births, said the report in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Gun violence is on the rise in U.S. movies and has more than tripled since 1985 in those rated as acceptable for teenagers 13 and older, according to a study out Monday.

The amount of such violence seen in modern movies rated PG-13 even exceeded that in films rated R for adults in 2012, said the findings by American and Dutch university researchers in the U.S. journal Pediatrics.

Emily Sagalis cried tears of joy after giving birth to a "miracle" girl in a typhoon-ravaged Philippine city, then named the baby after her mother who went missing in the storm.

The girl was born Monday in a destroyed airport compound that was turned into a makeshift medical center, with her bed a piece of dirty plywood resting amid dirt, broken glass, twisted metal, nails and other debris.

An Omani man has died after contracting MERS, becoming the first recorded fatality from the coronavirus in the Gulf sultanate, health authorities announced Sunday.

The 68-year-old was "suffering from several chronic illnesses including diabetes, blood pressure, and heart failure," the health ministry said in a statement.

A new Obama administration rule requires insurers to cover treatment for mental health and substance abuse no differently than they do for physical illnesses.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says nearly 60 percent of people with mental health conditions and nearly 90 percent with substance abuse disorders don't receive the treatment they need.

Rickets, the childhood disease that once caused an epidemic of bowed legs and curved spines during the Victorian era, is making a shocking comeback in 21st-century Britain.

Rickets results from a severe deficiency of vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium. Rickets was historically considered to be a disease of poverty among children who toiled in factories during the Industrial Revolution, and some experts have hypothesized it afflicted literary characters like Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

Saudi Arabia has recorded two new cases of the MERS virus, the health ministry said on Saturday, a day after authorities in neighboring Qatar reported one new case.

Saudi Arabia accounts for a full 52 of 127 deaths worldwide from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) so far, while Qatar accounts for two.

U.S. regulators took steps to eliminate artery-clogging trans fats from processed foods like margarine, microwave popcorn and frozen pizza, saying that partially hydrogenated oils are not safe to eat.

The proposal by the Food and Drug Administration aims to reduce heart disease and deaths by requiring packaged food-makers to choose safer mono and polyunsaturated fats.

A French family who came to the United States for medical treatment said they were stranded in Chicago after British Airways determined their son was too fat to fly.

Kevin Chenais, 22, spent a year and a half at the Mayo Clinic for treatment of a hormone disorder which led him to weigh 500 pounds.