The first immune-based treatment for lung cancer won approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, and it could displace more conventional chemotherapy for certain patients, at least.

Having to decide on your parent's death is something you should never have to do. While I would like to be able to make a blanket statement, saying that you should always honor his or her own decision, in the end I guess every case is different.

Researchers from Germany have found a gene that can only be found in humans and is responsible for making us more intelligent than other creatures. The gene, dubbed ARHGAP11B, is believed to have emerged after human ancestors and chimpanzees split off from the same evolutionary path over five million years ago paving way for the rapid expansion of the human brain. The gene, which was described in the journal Science on Feb. 26, dramatically increased the number of brain cells present in the key regions of the brains and thus led to the rise of human intelligence.

This spring, a federally funded national program will start to screen tumors in thousands of patients to see which might be attacked by any of at least a dozen new drugs. Those whose tumors have mutations that can be attacked will be given the drugs. The studies of this new method, called basket studies because they lump together different kinds of cancer, are revolutionary, much smaller than the usual studies, and without control groups of patients who for comparison’s sake receive standard treatment. Researchers and drug companies asked the Food and Drug Administration for its opinion, realizing that if the F.D.A. did not accept the studies, no drugs would ever be approved on the basis of them. But the F.D.A. said it sanctioned them and could approve drugs with basket study data alone.

Although it is still too early, as only two dozen patients have taken part in the trial so far, scientists take an optimist view in the results. In the new treatment, specialists use a high dose of chemotherapy to knock out the immune system before rebuilding it with stem cells taken from the patient’s own blood.

Scientists from the University of San Luis Potosi in Mexico have proposed a new idea for detecting brain conditions including Alzheimer's - a skin test. Their work, which is at an early stage, found the same abnormal proteins that accumulate in the brain in such disorders can also be found in skin. Early diagnosis is key to preventing the loss of brain tissue in dementia, which can go undetected for years.