U.S. health officials are asking safety questions about the first artificial heart valve designed to be implanted without major surgery, ahead of a meeting this week to consider broadening its use.

Last November Edwards Lifesciences Corp. won approval for its first-of-a-kind Sapien heart valve, which can be threaded into place through one of the body's major arteries. The valve is currently available for patients who aren't healthy enough to undergo the more invasive open-heart surgery which has been used to replace the valve for decades.

Finally, some good news for older fathers. A new study hints that their children and even their grandchildren may get a health benefit because of their older age.

It's based on research into something called telomeres — tips on the ends of chromosomes.

A scientific discovery about where and how cervical cancer takes root in the body has resolved a decades-long mystery and could lead to even better prevention in the future, experts say.

Doctors have identified a peculiar population of stem-like cells in a part of the cervix that when infected by human papillomavirus are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, according to a study out Monday.

Fatima Sheriff has a sketchy recollection of the day her mother pinned down her four-year-old body while a stranger slashed at her genitals.

"I remember I was fighting," the 32-year-old told Agence France Presse, pointing to her back where she bears a scar from flailing about on the stony ground on which she was mutilated.

A frail 65-year-old woman sitting under the mango trees in a rural village in Chad suffers from a tropical disease that eats into the brain, and the locals blame on witchcraft.

"I've been suffering for more than two months now. I have headaches, fever, and I just feel very tired," said Lea Sadene, who has just been tested and diagnosed.

Scientists on Sunday said they had found a key piece in the puzzle as to why a tiny minority of individuals infected with HIV have a natural ability to fight off the deadly AIDS virus.

In a study they said holds promise for an HIV vaccine, researchers from four countries reported the secret lies not in the number of infection-killing cells a person has, but in how well they work.

European and Australian scientists on Sunday said they had snared four more genes that highlight an inherited cause for common migraine.

The genetic variants were spotted in a trawl through the DNA code of 4,800 people with a history of "migraine without aura," which accounts for two-thirds of migraine attacks.

People who survive cancer when they are teenagers or young adults are more likely than their peers who never had cancer to engage in risky behaviors like smoking later on, a U.S. study said Monday.

They also are more likely to be overweight and have mental health issues and financial problems than their cancer-free counterparts, said the research in the journal Cancer, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Cancer Society.

The Canadian province of Quebec announced Friday that it is suing tobacco giants for more than $60 billion dollars in a bid to recover health care costs associated with smoking-related illnesses.

The lawsuit targets the Canadian tobacco companies and their parent companies abroad and seeks damages related to the cost of treating patients from the 1970s until 2030, Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fourner said.

People with cancer who were caught in the aftermath of the World Trade Center collapse during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York should be eligible for aid, authorities proposed Friday.

A wide range of dozens of cancers was recommended to be added to the list of conditions officially linked to 9/11, when thousands of local residents and rescue workers were forced for weeks to breathe dust and fumes from the fallen towers.