For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo once again has Mandrills on exhibit.

The mandrills, which are the world's largest species of monkey, are housed in the zoo's Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building. There are two males and two females. The males - Dwezill and Woody - came to Cleveland from Disney's Animal Kingdom, and the two females - Zenani and Eebi - came from the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York.

The Cleveland zoo has exhibited mandrills beginning in the 1950s, but hasn't had any since 1992.

Native to the western African nations of Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabo, mandrills are the largest species of monkey and are closely related to baboons and drills. Mature adult male mandrills feature one of the most brightly colored faces in the animal world, with a long muzzle with red and blue stripes, red nose and lips, and a yellowish beard.

According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 90 percent of people over the age of two consume too much sodium.

The problem isn't potato chips and french fries. Rather, the CDC places much of the blame on bread products. Just one slice of bread can contain over 200 milligrams of salt.

The recommended amount of sodium per day is 2300 milligrams, but the average American eats about 3300 milligrams daily.

This is a concern because too much sodium can raise blood pressure, which can cause heart disease.

Some highlights from the study include:

• Reducing the sodium Americans eat by 1,200 mg per day on average could save up to $20 billion a year in medical costs.
• Types of foods matter-More than 40% of sodium comes from the following 10 types of foods: breads and rolls, cold cuts and cured meats such as deli or packaged ham or turkey, pizza, fresh and processed poultry, soups, sandwiches such as cheeseburgers, cheese, pasta dishes, meat mixed dishes such as meat loaf with tomato sauce, and snacks such as chips, pretzels, and popcorn.

A Pennsylvania university is causing quite a commotion after it announced that it will offer the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill at a vending machine in its health center.

Shippensburg University will offer the pill for $25 in a machine located in a private room in the health center. The pill is only legal for those over 17-years-old, but the school determined that all of is 8,300 are over that age.

University spokesman Peter Gigliotti says that anyone can't just walk in from the street and purchase the pills:

"The machine is in a private room in our health center, and the health center is only accessible by students. In addition, no one can walk in off the street and go into the health center. Students proceed to a check-in desk located in the lobby and after checking in are granted access to the treatment area."

Since the school doesn't have any students aged 17 or younger, they're safe for now. But should any younger students enroll in the future, they may legally be required to remove the vending machines. As many other larger universities and colleges across the country do have younger students, Shippensburg's vending machine policy couldn't be perfectly duplicated everywhere.

If you watched the Super Bowl this past weekend from the Northeast Ohio region, you may recall seeing an intriguing commercial by the University of Akron which featured contact lens for diabetics that will change color with blood sugar levels. Researchers at U of A have been working on the diabetic lens since 2003, but they won't be ready for human use for at least three years.

The lens are currently in the prototype phase and are not approved for human use. The model in the advertisement did not actually wear the lens, and the images shown were simulated.

At best, it will be at least three years before such a lens could be made available commercially. As it is dependent upon clearing various funding and regulatory hurdles, the wait could end up being longer.

Jun Hu, an associate professor of chemistry at Akron, has been working on the sugar-sensing chemical that is key to the lens since 2003. He and his lab discovered a molecule known as a probe that binds well to sugars. In order to make it visible, they combined the probe with a dye. So, when sugar concentrations increase, the sugar binds to the probe, knocking loose the dye which will then be seen as a color change. When the sugar normalizes, the probe molecule picks the dye back up.

After nearly a decade of decline, measles outbreaks in parts of Europe and Africa led to 60,000 more cases worldwide in 2010 over the previous year.

A boost in global efforts to vaccinate people against measles lead to a decline in total cases from 853,000 in 2000 to 278,000 in 2008. In 2009, the figures remained stabled. 2010, however, saw an increase to 339,845 cases of measles, due largely to outbreaks in Europe and Africa.

The biggest increase in measles cases came specifically from Malawi, which had 118,712 cases. Burkino Faso came in second with 51,118, and Iraq pulled in third with 30,328. A couple European nations also came in the top 15, with Bulgaria reporting 22,004 cases and France with 5,048. Vietnam also notably reported 9,491 cases, while the Philippines had 6,368.

The measles outbreaks were mostly linked to low vaccination coverage of the population. In some cases this was due to limited or no access to health services, while in other areas it is due to religious or philosophical objections by parents who oppose vaccinating their children.

An infestation of hemlock trees in the state of Ohio has led the state's agriculture officials to cut down and burn invested trees. An aphid-like insect native to Asian known as the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid currently threatens eastern hemlock and Carolina hemlock in the eastern United States, and the infestation has spread to 16 states from Maine to Georgia.

The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid was first spotted in the U.S. in 1951. It was discovered in Ohio in January 2012, and at the time just five trees were infected. The state is trying to prevent it from spreading.

The Adelgid attacks of the base of the needles at the tips of branches. Systemic insecticides are applied to protect tens of thousands of hemlocks annually.

There are now 24 universities, seven institutions in both China and Japan, 20 state agencies, four federal agencies, and nine private organizations involved in the effort to combat the bugs.

Photo: An infected hemlock tree.

An air quality advisory has been issued for Thursday, February 2, 2012, for several Northeast Ohio counties due to fine particles. The advisory covers Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit Counties.

Fine particle levels will be "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" during peak hours. The fine particles, as well as a haze in the atmosphere, will result from continued accumulation of pollutants from motor vehicle exhaust and other local sources. The particles accumulate because of stagnant atmospheric conditions, presence of moisture and temperature inversion.

"Sensitive Groups" includes children, the elderly and those with breathing difficulties.

Pfizer Inc. has issued a recall of one million packets of birth control pills because of a packaging error that could raise the risk of an accidental pregnancy by leaving women with an inadequate dose.

14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of generic Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets are affected by the problem. Both products are manufactured by Pfizer, and are marketed in the U.S. by Akrimax Rx Products.

Pfizer discovered that some of the packets had too many active tablets, while others had too few.

The risk of pregnancy depends on how many doses a patient misses in a pill cycle.

A NASA spacecraft has detected for the very first time matter from outside of our solar system. Researchers announced on Tuesday that this material has come from elsewhere in the galaxy.

The "interstellar material" was spotted by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a spacecraft studying the edge of the solar system from its orbit 200,000 miles above earth.

David McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute in San Diego, said:

"This alien interstellar material is really the stuff that stars and planets and people are made of — it's really important to be measuring it."

A team of international scientists presented the new IBEX findings, which included the first detection of alien particles of hydrogen, oxygen, and neon, as well as the confirmation of previously detected helium.

NASA launched the IBEX mission in October 2008 in order to map the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. The $169 million spacecraft was originally built for a two-year mission.

On Tuesday, the first drug to treat the root cause of cystic fibrosis, Kalydeco, won approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Kalydeco now offers a life-changing treatment for a handful of patients in the U.S. who suffer from the deadly illness, and gives home for thousands of other patients with the disease.

30,000 Americans live with cystic fibrosis, which is a disease that causes sticky mucus to build-up in he lungs and other organs, which leads to infections, digestive problems and death in young adulthood. The typical life expectancy for those with cystic fibrosis is 37 years.

The FDA approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Kalydeco for patients with a rare form of the disease that affects only about 1,200 people in the U.S., or just 4 percent of all cystic fibrosis sufferers. These particular patients have a protein defect that prevents their cells from properly absorbing and excreting salt and water. Studies of Kalydeco showed that it significantly improved lung function ad reduced other symptoms of the disease.

The pill, which is taken twice a day, is amongst the first drugs designed to correct a specific genetic defect.