Gay men who use smartphone apps to hunt for a sex partner nearby run a higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted disease than those meeting online or in bars, researchers said Thursday.

Applications such as Grindr, Scruff and Recon use the smartphone's geolocation facility to help the user hook up with other men in the vicinity who are also looking for sex.

The most comprehensive study of Mexican genetics to date revealed a vastly diverse and nuanced genetic landscape, shedding important light on health issues for Latinos of Mexican descent.

Much of the existing genetic research has been done on European populations, but scientists say differing genetic make-up can be vital in understanding the prevalence of diseases and how to treat them. 

In recent weeks, out of the blue, it suddenly became hard for some American foodies to smile and say cheese.

The U.S. government's Food and Drug Administration had questioned the hygiene standards of the centuries-old technique of aging artisanal cheese on wooden shelves.

One of the multitude of Indian emigrant doctors, Paul Ramesh moved to Britain in the 1990s, keen to get the best surgical training and earn a generous pay packet.

Today he is still treating Westerners -- but in hospital beds back in Chennai, his south Indian hometown in Tamil Nadu state.

A nasty mosquito-borne virus that has been spreading rapidly in the Caribbean has made its way to the U.S. Virgin Islands, authorities said Wednesday.

Health officials in the U.S. Caribbean territory said they confirmed the islands' first locally transmitted case of chikungunya. They did not disclose any information about the patient. A second patient in the three-island territory was infected elsewhere.

The trial of a doctor accused of having poisoned seven terminally-ill patients opened in France Wednesday, reviving the debate on euthanasia in a country where the practice is illegal.

Nicolas Bonnemaison faces life in prison if found guilty of "poisoning particularly vulnerable people" -- five women and two men who died between March 2010 and July 2011 soon after being admitted to a hospital in the southwestern city of Bayonne where he worked.

Bird flu viruses circulating in nature contain eight genes key to potentially recreate a pathogene similar to that which caused the 1918 deadly Spanish flu pandemic, a study published Wednesday said.

An international team of virologists identified the key genetic components -- similar to those in the virus behind the 1918 pandemic -- in influenza viruses in wild ducks. 

Thousands of children in war-torn Somalia are facing death or disability due to an outbreak of highly contagious measles, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Recent rates of infection are four times higher than the same time last year, and a vaccination campaign must be "urgently conducted to prevent thousands of avoidable deaths", the U.N. children's agency UNICEF and the  World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a joint statement.

With pinched noses and watery eyes, thousands of Indians have lined up to swallow live fish in a traditional treatment for asthma administered annually in the country's south.

Asthma sufferers gather every June in the southern city of Hyderabad to gulp down the fish stuffed with a yellow herbal paste, in hopes it will help them breathe more easily.

In another step towards reversing degenerative vision loss, scientists said Tuesday they had coaxed stem cells into growing into a tiny, light-sensing retina in a lab dish.

The study is an important technical feat in using reprogrammed cells, whose discovery in 2006 has unleashed huge interest, they said.