Two papers in this week's PLoS Medicine suggest possible new avenues of treatment against malaria.

Mosquitoes don't mind morning breath. They use the carbon dioxide people exhale as a way to identify a potential food source. But when they bite, they can pass on a number of dangerous infectious diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile encephalitis.

As events in Washington mark the U.S. government effort to combat malaria in Africa, West Africans, themselves, are busy applying techniques they were unfamiliar with and trying new drugs. VOA's Nico Colombant reports.

By training professionals in high-biodiversity regions to advance the drug discovery process in-country, a novel program drives drug discovery costs down as it promotes tropical biodiversity conservation. An international team describes a successful test of the program in Panama in the December, 2006 issue of BioScience.