Though Minerva rarely manages to squash mosquitoes, she derives great satisfaction when she does. But US doctors say it's better to flick mosquitoes off skin, rather than squashing them, after a 57 year old woman died from an extremely rare fungal infection called Brachiola algerae, which she developed after swatting a mosquito. The fungus is not carried in mosquito saliva, so it's not passed on in bites, but swatting the insect caused part of it to penetrate and infect her skin (New England Journal of Medicine 2004;351: 42-7)

Evidence is accumulating that, when it comes to protecting patients from hypertension, the isolated blood pressure measurement using a simple cuff is of limited use. Routine magnetic resonance images of the head often show apparently incidental findings of tiny bleeds, but new data show that these are located precisely at points of hypertensive vasculopathy. The advice to doctors is to take note, treat the blood pressure aggressively, and probably avoid giving anticoagulants to these patients (Neurology 2004;63: 6-7)

One possible reason that female athletes have such a high rate of anterior cruciate ligament injuries could be the vagaries of the menstrual cycle. But a study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine (2004;32: 1150-7) says that ligament laxity in knees is not significantly affected by …