Not that long ago many chronic diseases were considered to be problems confined to prosperous countries. But the developing world is fast catching up—especially when it comes to diabetes.

Populous India and China have the most diabetic citizens in the world, with 40.9 million and 39.8 million respectively, according to data from International Diabetes Foundation. Other developing countries, including Egypt and Suriname, have a higher prevalence of diabetes among adults than the U.S.

In today’s Boston Globe, reporter Derrick Jackson writes from Uganda about the rise of diabetes there and the struggle for funds to fight the disease.

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Along with melting glaciers and more intense heat weaves, a report released by the Obama administration today outlines the detrimental effects of global warming on winter recreation, power generation, fisheries, and even maple syrup.

“It is clear that climate change is happening now,” Jerry Melillo, lead author of the report and an ecologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., said at a press conference.  “The observed climate changes we report are not opinions to be debated, they are facts to be reported.”

Beginning in 1990, the United States Global Change Research Program has been required to report every 10 years on the natural and anthropogenic effects of climate change in the United States. The 188-page report was written with input from 13 federal agencies and President Barack Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren.

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After proposing $313 billion in cuts to providers of health care this weekend, President Obama took the stage at the American Medical Association’s (AMA) annual meeting in Chicago today to reassure doctors and ask for their backing of his plan to remake health care.

It was the latest stop on Obama’s campaign for health reform and the first time a president has addressed the AMA since Ronald Reagan in 1983.

To trim wasteful spending, Obama suggested changing payment of doctors and hospitals to reward quality over quantity of care.

But many doctors fret that cuts and a proposed government-run insurance option could hurt their livelihoods. “Now, I know there’s some concern about a public option,” Obama told the doctors. “In particular, I understand that you are concerned that today’s Medicare rates will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs.” 

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Herpetologist Robert Drewes will forever be remembered for his two-inch Phallus.

In the upcoming issue of the journal Mycologia, scientists describe a new species of stinkhorn fungus from Africa, which they christened Phallus drewesii in honor of their expedition leader.

“I am utterly delighted,” Drewes told the San Jose Mercury News, “The funny thing is that it is the second smallest known mushroom in this genus and it grows sideways, almost limp.”

As the California Academy of Sciences’ curator of herpetology, Drewes has spent his career wrangling snakes and chasing after frogs. Since 2001, he has been leading scientific expeditions to the sparsely populated islands of Sâo Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of West Africa, home to hundreds of plant and animal species found nowhere else on earth.

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After winning sizable majorities in both House and Senate this week, a new bill would allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate tobacco. President Barack Obama, who has called it a way to "protect our kids and improve our public health," is expected to sign the bill into law soon.

The Office of the Surgeon General issued a report [pdf] back in 1964, asserting that tobacco's "potential hazard is great… cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate." But in the intervening years, the $89 billion tobacco industry has eluded strict regulation. Annually, smoking ups U.S. health care costs $100 billion and continues to kill about 400,000.

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Last year, one of the world’s most aggressive island restoration projects was launched to poison all the invasive rats on Alaska’s Rat Island, located in the western part of the Aleutian islands. But the extermination project may have taken an unexpected toll: a recent survey of the island recovered the corpses of 41 bald eagles and 186 glaucous-winged gulls – raising the possibility that the birds died after consuming poisoned rats.

“When you go to an island after a winter, it's not surprising to find bird carcasses,” says U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Bruce Woods, “but not these numbers.” There were only four breeding pairs of the federally protected bald eagles residing on the island last year, but the population in the Aleutians numbers 2,500.

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Anthony Franz says an undercooked salmon salad gave him a 9-foot-tapeworm, and in August he sued the Chicago restaurant that served it to him. 

If Franz’s tapeworm tale holds water – and the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the restaurant disputes his account – then it’s just one more data point to add to a growing urban tapeworm problem.

Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense. The parasite, which can reach lengths of 39 feet (12 meters), has been steadily increasing its global distribution and prevalence – mostly among yuppies with a hankering for sashimi and ceviche.

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Although the H1N1 virus has not proven as deadly as the annual bouts of seasonal flu, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the pandemic threat level today from 5 to 6, the highest designation, signaling that there has been substantial "community transmission" on multiple continents. 

At least 28,774 cases of the virus have been reported in 74 countries, and 144 people have died, the WHO reports on its Web site. For comparison, the seasonal flu kills an average of 36,000 people in the U.S. every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

"The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a press conference today. "Further spread is considered inevitable." Now that the virus has been acknowledged as a global pandemic, it's more like "a marathon—you're not talking about a sprint," said another WHO spokesperson, who expects it to spread for the next couple years until people begin to develop immunity to the strain.

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Editor's note: Some readers may be disturbed by the content of this article, which refers to Air France Flight 447 and contains descriptions of human remains.

On Tuesday, Brazilian authorities recovered 16 bodies from the Air France crash in the Atlantic Ocean, bringing the total to 24.

The Airbus 330 jet took off from Rio de Janeiro on its way to Paris on May 31 when it disappeared during intense thunderstorms. Investigators are currently considering the possibility that the plane's airspeed sensors were iced over. Meanwhile the Brazilian navy is conducting an all-out search for the bodies.

Finding survivors lost at sea is a race against time because of the possibility of starvation or hypothermia. But none of the 228 people on board Flight 447 were expected to have survived the plane's impact.

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To win the favor of females, male Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) dive at record speeds of 385 body lengths per second—and pull some extreme in-flight maneuvers—reports a new study in the U.K. journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Using high-speed video cameras, study author Christopher Clark, a doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley's Animal Flight Laboratory, was able to capture the birds' courtship dive, which, he writes, resembles the shape of "a tilted 'J'."

After plunging at a velocity of up to 89.6 feet (27.3 meters) per second, the tiny bird throws out its wings and pulls suddenly up, a move that would expose the little guy to nine times standard gravity. To put that in context, human fighter pilots usually black out at around seven g's.

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