Scientists who created a mutant bird flu virus said Wednesday they will resume the controversial research after taking a 12-month break to allay fears of the bug escaping the lab or falling into terrorist hands.

Citing a "public health responsibility" to continue the work, the teams said research will resume in countries whose governments had given the go-ahead, but not in the United States, which is mulling safety guidelines, nor at U.S.-sponsored research projects in other countries.

The intention to turn a St. Petersburg clinic treating pediatric cancer patients into one that would exclusively serve judges and staff of Russia's highest courts spread widespread public dismay.

More than 100,000 people signed a petition to President Vladimir Putin, a city native, urging him to scrap the plan to change City Hospital No. 31. Among those who signed were prominent figures from the worlds of art and sciences, including physicist Zhores Alfyorov, a Nobel Prize winner who is a member of Russia's parliament.

U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.

Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but is still rising for women.

More than 100 children have died of measles in Pakistan this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday, calling it "an alarming outbreak."

"Some 103 Pakistani children have died from Jan 1 to Jan 19 this year because of the post-measles complications such as pneumonia, post-measles encephalitis and diarrhea," WHO spokeswoman Maryam Yunus told AFP.

Thousands of tobacconists from across Europe marched on European Union headquarters on Tuesday to protest against a planned EU crackdown on smoking that includes grueseome health warnings placarded on packets.

From Austria, Germany and Poland, but most largely from France and Italy, 2,200 marchers according to police, 3,500 according to organizers, protested against measures they say harm small retailers and encourage cigarette smuggling.

Chad's government on Tuesday said a team of international experts have not been able to find any links between the hospitalization of 38 children and their recent vaccinations against meningitis.

The children fell ill in the northern village of Gouro and were admitted to hospital after being vaccinated in a government campaign against the disease between December 11 and 15.

A drug found to affect the cognitive ability of toddlers born to women who took the medication for epilepsy has a longer-term impact on their IQ, a study said on Wednesday.

Researchers in the United States carried out follow-up tests among the same group of children whose investigation in 2009 led to warning by the U.S. health watchdog about the potential risks of the drug valproate in pregnancy.

Researchers in Japan said Wednesday they have succeeded in growing human kidney tissue from stem cells for the first time in a potential breakthrough for millions with damaged organs who are dependent on dialysis.

Kidneys have a complex structure that is not easily repaired once damaged, but the latest findings put scientists on the road to helping a diseased or distressed organ fix itself.

Millions of French fretted Tuesday -- and some felt sick or got headaches -- after a gas leak at a chemical plant cast a strong odor that wafted from northern France as far as Paris.

Authorities insisted that the gas, mercaptan, was harmless, but emergency lines were inundated with calls from people worried about the pong that came from a Lubrizol factory in the Normandy city of Rouen.

Japan plans to ease restrictions on American and French beef imports imposed due to concerns over mad cow disease, government officials and local media said Tuesday.

Japan, which was once the largest buyer of U.S. beef, halted imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in an American herd in 2003. It now imports meat only from cattle aged under 20 months.