The Chinese inventor who dreamed up the electronic cigarette in a nicotine-induced vision says that despite its global popularity, copycat versions and legal disputes mean he has battled to cash in on his creation.

"Smoking is the most unhealthy thing in people's everyday lives.... I've made a big contribution to society," said Hon Lik, 57, in a cramped office in Beijing, sending tobacco-scented smoke into the air as he puffed on a battery-powered pipe.

A new technique that coaxes an infertile woman's ovaries into producing eggs again has resulted in the birth of a baby in Japan, international scientists said Monday.

A second woman has also become pregnant using the same method, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed U.S. journal.

The number of world hungry has dropped to one in eight people, making the goal of halving hunger by 2015 possible despite continued problems in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, the U.N. food agency said Tuesday.

At the global level, 842 million people -- 12 percent of the world's population -- did not have enough food for an active and healthy life, down from 868 million for the period 2010 to 2012.

The global war on heroin, cocaine and cannabis is failing to stem supply, as prices of these drugs have tumbled while seizures of them have risen, according to a study published Monday.

Researchers analysed data from seven government-funded programmes that tracked the illegal drug market over more than a decade.

It's the latest weight loss craze among American teens striving to emulate the models they see in magazines: the "thigh gap", in which slender legs, when standing with feet together, do not touch.

Experts say the cost of what teens see as an ideal body shape -- but really is for most unattainable -- is self-esteem problems that can lead to eating disorders, depression and even suicide.

A 30-year-old infertile woman gave birth after surgeons removed her ovaries and re-implanted tissue they treated in a lab, researchers report.

The experimental technique was only tried in a small group of Japanese women with a specific kind of infertility problem, but scientists hope it can also help women in their early 40s who have trouble getting pregnant because of their age.

The world is aging so fast that most countries are not prepared to support their swelling numbers of elderly people, according to a global study going out Tuesday by the United Nations and an elder rights group.

The report ranks the social and economic well-being of elders in 91 countries, with Sweden coming out on top and Afghanistan at the bottom. It reflects what advocates for the old have been warning, with increasing urgency, for years: Nations are simply not working quickly enough to cope with a population graying faster than ever before. By the year 2050, for the first time in history, seniors over the age of 60 will outnumber children under the age of 15.

A biotech drug from Roche has become the first medicine approved to treat breast cancer before surgery, offering an earlier approach against one of the deadliest forms of the disease.

The U.S. IFood and Drug Administration approved Perjeta for women with a form of early-stage breast cancer who face a high risk of having their cancer spread to other parts of the body.

Nearly nine in 10 children in China can identify a cigarette logo, according to a U.S. study out Monday that measured tobacco recognition among five- and six-year-olds in various countries.

The study in the journal Pediatrics covered six nations -- China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, as well as China -- where adult smoking rates are the highest, according to the World Health Organization.

The Ombudsman for Children in Sweden called Saturday for the country to ban circumcision, a practice he said contravened the basic rights of boys.

"Circumcising a child without medical justification nor his consent contravenes this child's human rights," wrote Fredrik Malmberg in a text co-signed with health professionals and published in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.