News Articles

A study from the Harokopio University of Athens (Greece) says that adherence to a dietary pattern close to the Mediterranean diet, with high consumption of fish and olive oil and low red meat intake, has a significant impact in women skeletal health.Results suggest that this eating pattern could have bone-preserving properties throughout adult life.Diet is one of the modifiable factors for the development and maintenance of bone mass. The nutrients of most obvious relevance to bone health are calcium and phosphorus because they compose roughly 80% to 90% of the mineral content of bone; protein, other minerals and vitamins are also essential in bone preservation.

With its light body made of Kevlar, sleek aerodynamic design and three Olympic-racing wheelchair tires, it looks like something that escaped from the Batcave but it’s actually a school project by a team of six Dalhousie University senior mechanical engineering students.The ultimate in fuel efficiency, the “Maritime Mileage Machine” will be entered in the 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas taking place on April 15 to 18 at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The event challenges high school and post-secondary students across Canada, the U.S., Mexico and South America to design and build a vehicle that will drive the farthest using the least amount of energy.

A case report published in PLoS Medicine describes a rare side effect of human fetal stem cell therapy. Ninette Amariglio and Gideon Rechavi from the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel, and colleagues report the case of a boy with a rare genetic disease, Ataxia Telangiectasia, who underwent human fetal stem cell therapy at an unrelated clinic in Moscow and who, four years after the therapy began, was shown to have abnormal growths in his brain and spinal cord.

Increasing numbers are risking their health just because they want to have a tan, say researchers in an editorial published on bmj.com today.The authors, led by Michael Evans-Brown from Liverpool John Moores University, argue that while the actual number of people having 'tan jabs' (the drugs Melanotan I and Melanotan II) is unknown, they are easily available via the internet and in some tanning salons and hairdressers. A thriving online community of users exist, the largest of which is Melanotan.org with over 5,000 members.

The Rift Valley fever virus is a mosquito-borne African virus that causes fever in humans, inflicting liver damage, blindness and even death on a small percentage of the people it infects. Rift Valley fever also afflicts cattle, goats and sheep, resulting in a nearly 100 percent abortion rate in these animals. Its outbreaks periodically cause economic devastation in parts of Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and bioterrorism experts warn that its introduction to the United States would cripple the North American beef industry.Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston say they have discovered a key tactic that the Rift Valley fever virus uses to disarm the defenses of infected cells.

Plants are obviously essential to our survival and that of most other animals on earth but it is easy to overlook how they have become discretely embedded into our everyday lives; plants provide us with food, medicines, and raw materials used by our industries.Despite their importance, very few of us could name more than a tiny fraction of the plants that surround us and while most of us could easily between a buttercup and a dandelion (provided both are in flower), only a hand full of experts could identify all 1600 native plants in the UK - and nobody is able to name all of the 250,000 or so plant species recorded world-wide.

Introducing 'Natchez', the twelfth release in a series of erect-growing, high-quality, productive, floricane-fruiting blackberry (Rubus L. subgenus Rubus Watson) cultivars developed by the University of Arkansas.According to John R. Clark and James N. Moore of the Department of Horticulture at the University of Arkansas, the new blackberry is a result of a cross of Ark. 2005 and Ark. 1857 made in 1998. The original plant was selected in 2001 from a seedling field at the University of Arkansas Fruit Research Station in Clarksville, and tested as selection Ark. 2241.'Natchez' produces large fruit, near 9 grams on average in research trials. Fruit of 'Natchez' are elongated, somewhat blocky, and very attractive with an exceptional glossy, black finish. 

How many arms does a spiral galaxy have? Can you spot a galaxy with a central “peanut” bulge?  How about a galactic merger?   You won't need a towel to write an astronomical 'Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy', just a computer.    Answers to these and other strange questions will be provided by worldwide web users in an online citizen science project called Galaxy Zoo 2, which launches today.

Participating in certain mental activities, like reading magazines or crafting in middle age or later in life, may delay or prevent memory loss, according to a study released today.The study involved 197 people between the ages of 70 and 89 with mild cognitive impairment, or diagnosed memory loss, and 1,124 people that age with no memory problems. Both groups answered questions about their daily activities within the past year and in middle age, when they were between 50 to 65 years old. 

Preschool children who are securely attached to their mothers form closer friendships in the early grade-school years for a number of reasons, according to a new University of Illinois study published in Child Development.Scientists have known about the link between attachment and friendship quality, but they haven't understood the reasons it exists.The study included 1,071 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Researchers assessed mother-child attachment at age three. They also assessed how openly mothers and children acknowledged and communicated about their emotions when the child was four and a half.

While science tries to understand the stuff dreams are made of, humans, from cultures all over the world, continue to believe that dreams contain important hidden truths, according to newly published research. In six different studies, researchers surveyed nearly 1,100 people about their dreams. "Psychologists' interpretations of the meaning of dreams vary widely," said Carey Morewedge, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the study's lead author. "But our research shows that people believe their dreams provide meaningful insight into themselves and their world."

Six studies published in the past year by a Cornell researcher add to growing evidence that an apple a day -- as well as daily helpings of other fruits and vegetables -- can help keep the breast-cancer doctor away. In one of his recent papers, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (57:1), Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and a member of Cornell's Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology, reports that fresh apple extracts significantly inhibited the size of mammary tumors in rats -- and the more extracts they were given, the greater the inhibition.