Today's Globe: 'Yolanda's Law,' reducing falls, babbling birds, fever and a father, medical puzzler

Sixteen-year-old Yolanda M. Torres (left) of Plymouth was supposed to be a poster child for the proposal currently in the Legislature to improve mental health care for children. But not like this. In late January, in a violent impulse she left no note to explain, Yolanda committed suicide.

In Health/Science:

In 2005, a total of 207 elderly men and women died from falls in Massachusetts. A year later, the number of fatalities attributed to falls rose sharply - to 341. Many of the falls that injure or even kill should never happen in the first place.

Male songbirds mark the arrival of courting season with a series of chirps and peeps strung together in a melody designed to impress potential mates. The serenade is perfectly executed - a far cry from the random babbling noises the birds make as babies. New research from MIT suggests a specialized brain circuit is behind the birds' early ramblings, and may also underlie the nonsensical noises made by their human counterparts.

It's still unclear why a tonsillectomy should cure children of unexplained, recurring fevers. But in the five years since he removed his daughter's tonsils, Greg Licameli, an otolaryngologist, has seen 60 patients suffering from this cyclical fever syndrome, known as PFAFA, and the findings continue to hold up.

Ram Sasisekharan (left), an MIT professor of biological engineering and health sciences and technology who specializes in sugars, was, according to one colleague, the perfect person to bring the global scientific community together to solve the heparin contamination crisis.

Also, what should I do to make sure I'll get good results from LASIK surgery and what makes thunder last longer than a flash of lightning?