The Brazilian funding agency for scientific and technological research São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP, based in the state of São Paulo, announced an investment estimated in US$680 million to support 17 Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers for a period of up to eleven years. Each selected RIDC must develop opportunities to have its research results contribute to commercially and/or socially relevant high-impact applications, as well as contributing to education and dissemination of knowledge.

A high abortion rate is correlated with increases in intimate partner violence, and women's homicide and suicide, according to scientific studies discussed in the context of the sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations.

A new article published in a Mexican journal specialized in Obstetrics and Gynecology is bound to refuel the abortion debate following the recently published studies providing evidence of important overestimation of abortion figures and maternal mortality rates in Mexico by researchers of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and IPAS-Mexico.

"While we assign immense resources to map our genes, resolve sub-atomic structures and search for extra-terrestrial life, we invest so much less to discover who else accompanies us on the Earth," said Smithsonian research scientist Yves Basset who organized the most extensive count of insects to date in Panama's San Lorenzo Protected Area. During 2003-2004 scientists sampled the rainforest canopy from canopy cranes, inflatable platforms, balloons, climbing ropes and along the forest floor to collect a total of 130,000 insects.

There seems to be a paradox between estimated abortion figures and the significant decrease in abortion deaths in Mexico. A multinational collaborative study shows up to 10-fold overestimation of the actual induced abortion figures in Mexico DF when opinion surveys were used. Moreover, the report shows that 98 percent of maternal death causes are unrelated to induced abortion, highlighting the importance of increasing emergency and specialized obstetric care in Mexico to improve maternal health.

Overestimation of abortion mortality in Mexico obscures the progress in maternal health observed in this country over the last decades. A multinational collaborative study shows up to 35 percent overestimation of maternal and abortion mortality in Mexico. Moreover, the report shows that 98 percent of maternal death causes are unrelated to induced abortion, highlighting the importance of increasing emergency and specialized obstetric care in Mexico to improve maternal health.