Body

When it comes to understanding where tendencies to overweight and obesity develop, you have to begin with the very young, says John Spence, a behavioural scientist in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta.

His research, the first of its kind to look at North American kids and published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, examined four- and five year olds' avoidance or approach behaviours to food and their relationship with body weight.

Montreal −If you are a person who already has stable heart disease, how fast your heart beats at rest can predict your risk of dying, not only from heart disease but all other causes, Dr. Eva Lonn told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2010, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.

"The higher the heart rate, the higher the risk of death from cardiovascular and all causes, even after adjusting for all risk factors that could confound our results," says Dr. Lonn, a cardiologist and professor at McMaster University.

Nagoya, Japan, Wednesday 27 October 2010 (IUCN) – The most comprehensive assessment of the world's vertebrates confirms an extinction crisis with one-fifth of species threatened. However, the situation would be worse were it not for current global conservation efforts, according to a study launched today at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD, in Nagoya, Japan.

A new analysis of several major global studies of future species shifts and losses foresees inevitable continuing decline of biodiversity during the 21st century but offers new hope that it could be slowed if emerging policy choices are pursued.

Increasing numbers of birds, mammals and amphibians have moved closer to extinction in the last several decades—but not as far as they would have if no conservation measures at all had been enacted, researchers report.

Their study is being published online by the journal Science, at the Science Express Web site, at 6:30 p.m., U.S. Eastern Time, Tuesday, 26 October. Science is the journal of AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

Dr. Jack Musick, emeritus professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, has overseen a global study suggesting that 33 percent of shark, skate, and ray species are threatened with extinction.

Journals need to develop policies to handle the inevitable competing interests that arise when they publish papers that may bring them reprint revenue or increase their impact factors. This is the conclusion of a research article by Andreas Lundh and colleagues from the Nordic Cochrane Centre published in this weeks PLoS Medicine.

Current WHO pesticide classifications are based on toxicity in rats but basing regulation on human toxicity will make pesticide poisoning less hazardous and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths globally without compromising agricultural needs. These are the key findings from a study by Andrew Dawson (South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) and colleagues published in this week's PLoS Medicine.

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Older adults who survive severe sepsis are at higher risk for long-term cognitive impairment and physical limitations than those hospitalized for other reasons, according to researchers from the University of Michigan Health System.

An analysis of data from previously published studies indicates that use of the antiplatelet drug clopidogrel for patients who have common genetic variants of a certain gene and are undergoing a procedure such as coronary stent placement have an associated increased risk for major adverse cardiovascular events, particularly development of blood clots in stents, according to a study in the October 27 issue of JAMA.

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are helping ensure that the smoked salmon that's always a hit at festive gatherings also is always safe to eat, including among their achievements the development of a first-of-its-kind mathematical model that food processors and others can use to select the optimal combination of temperature and concentrations of salt and smoke compounds to reduce or eliminate microbial contamination of the product.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – In a short, violent battle that could have happened somewhere this afternoon, the lizard made a fast lunge at the dragonfly, bit its head off and turned to run away. Lunch was served.

But the battle didn't happen today, it happened about 100 million years ago, probably with dinosaurs strolling nearby. And the lizard didn't get away, it was trapped in the same oozing, sticky tree sap that also entombed the now-headless dragonfly for perpetuity.

CHAPEL HILL – The method used to assess infertility in at-home tests might not be the best for identifying which women will have trouble getting pregnant, according to new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

The study found that the cutoffs used by such infertility tests, which measure levels of a molecule called follicle stimulating hormone or FSH, label many women as infertile who actually go on to have children naturally.

Most babies are delivered head-first, but in about 4% of all deliveries babies are "born breech" ― with their buttocks or feet first. Doctors usually exercise caution and use caesarean sections (C-sections) as the delivery method of choice for such births, believing it safer for the baby. After a large-scale international study in 2000, C-sections became the near-universal choice for such births.