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University of Illinois researchers recently discovered that feeding co-products and cornstalk residue in the winter can save cow-calf producers up to $1 per day per cow as compared to feeding hay.

Feed costs continue to be the number one detriment to profitability in cow-calf operations. With feed comprising 60 percent of a producer's costs, any measures producers take to minimize expenses can make the difference between profit or no profit at the end of the year.

Generation X, the set of Americans who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is often branded as a rules-rejecting, authority-questioning group.

But when it comes to religion, new research has revealed that Gen-Xers are surprisingly loyal to their faith – a finding that also suggests the rising non-religious tide in the United States may be leveling off.

Clinical depression and anxiety during pregnancy results in smaller babies that are more likely to die in infancy, according to new research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The study, which focused on women living in rural Bangladesh, provides the first finding of its kind in a non-Western population. The research indicates that mental health issues are likely to be a primary contributor to infant mortality and poor child health, above poverty, malnutrition or low socio-economic status.

A rare form of kidney disease linked to a genetic mutation in the innate immune system has been identified by researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.

So far, the disease, which the researchers have named CFHR5 nephropathy, has been identified in over one hundred people, all of whom are of Cypriot descent, including some living in the UK. Symptoms include blood in the urine – both microscopic and, occasionally, visible – and progressive kidney malfunction.

An international group of researchers led by the Peninsula Medical School and the University of Exeter have for the first time identified changes in sex hormones associated with BPA exposure in men, in a large population study. The study results are published in the latest issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Plantain and broccoli fibres may block a key stage in the development of the inflammatory bowel disorder, Crohn's disease, suggests preliminary research published online in Gut.

The causes of Crohn's disease are thought to be a mix of genetic and environmental factors, one of which is very likely to be diet.

The disease is significantly less common in developing countries, where fibrous fruit and vegetables are dietary staples, and its incidence has recently risen rapidly in Japan, in tandem with the increasing adoption of a more Westernised diet.

New York, August 25, 2010—A multicenter study has concluded that treatment with a new targeted therapy called PLX4032 (also called RG7204) resulted in significant tumor shrinkage in 80 percent of patients with advanced melanoma. Investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and colleagues at other cancer centers have published their findings in the August 26 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A 13-member research team led by University of Oregon scientist Dr. Albert O. Edwards has found a gene likely responsible for Fuchs corneal dystrophy, an inheritable genetic disorder and leading cause of corneal transplant operations.

Edwards performed a genome-wide analysis comparing patients with and without typical age-related Fuchs, finding an alteration in the transcription-factor-4 gene (TCF4). Fuchs -- pronounced FEWKS or FOOKS -- generally emerges in middle-aged, roughly age 40, and older people.

Scientists at Georgetown University, the National Aquarium and the University of Queensland are the first to extract DNA from dolphin blow (breath exhalations).The researchers found that blow-sampling, which involves collecting exhalations from the blowholes of whales, dolphins and porpoises, could be developed as a less invasive method for DNA collection. Their findings are explained in the Aug. 25 edition of the online journal PLoS ONE in an article titled "Thar She Blows! A Novel Method for DNA Collection from Cetacean Blow."

Naringenin, an antioxidant derived from the bitter flavor of grapefruits and other citrus fruits, may cause the liver to break down fat while increasing insulin sensitivity, a process that naturally occurs during long periods of fasting.

Use of an experimental targeted drug to treat metastatic melanoma tumors with a specific genetic signature was successful in more than 80 percent of patients in a phase 1 clinical trial. Results of the trial of PLX4032, an inhibitor of a protein called BRAF that is overactive in more than half of all melanomas, appear in the August 26 New England Journal of Medicine.

Oyster reefs are on the decline, with over-harvesting and pollution reducing some stocks as much as 98 percent over the last two centuries.

A type of high-tech imaging can be used to distinguish the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter from other microorganisms as quickly as 24 hours after a sample is placed on solid media in a Petri dish, according to a study published by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Drought-tolerant crops have moved closer to becoming reality.

A collaborative team of scientists has made a significant advance on the discovery last year by the University of California, Riverside's Sean Cutler of pyrabactin, a synthetic chemical that mimics a naturally produced stress hormone in plants to help them cope with drought conditions.