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New research from the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) highlights the need to make prisoners more aware of voluntary organisations that could help them towards resettlement. The report shows that despite the relatively high number of third sector organisations working within prisons, many are not known by prisoners.

A new University of Minnesota discovery may help bone cancer patients fight their disease more effectively, according to new research published in the September issue of Bone.

When normal proteins form protein clumps in the body, then alarm bells start ringing. Such clumps, called "amyloids," are closely associated with Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes. If doctors knew how these proteins form clumps, then they might be able to treat such diseases more efficiently. The physicist Adrian Keller and his colleagues at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and the university in Aarhus, Denmark, have succeeded in taking a major step in that direction.

Most synthetic chemical products used in consumer goods end up unchanged in the environment. Given the risks this could pose for the environment and human health, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) have developed a new tool to effectively predict what will happen to current and future pharmaceutical products.

A recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) found that adults who consumed high fructose corn syrup for two weeks as 25 percent of their daily calorie requirement had increased blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, which have been shown to be indicators of increased risk for heart disease.

A new study shows the prevalence of gout in the U.S. has risen over the last twenty years and now affects 8.3 million (4%) Americans. Prevalence of increased uric acid levels (hyperuricemia) also rose, affecting 43.3 million (21%) adults in the U.S. Greater frequency of obesity and hypertension may be associated with the jump in prevalence rates according to the findings now available in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

Electronic ear tags are being used to provide an early warning system that will help farmers identify sick animals within a herd.

The new system, being trialled by scientists at Newcastle University, tracks the feeding behaviour of each individual animal, alerting farmers to any change that might indicate the cow is unwell.

Using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology - similar to that used in the Transport for London Oyster card - each calf is 'clocked' in and out every time they approach the trough, with the time spent feeding being logged by a computer.

One in five 11-year-old children is currently defined as obese, and the country faces a potentially huge burden of increased obesity-associated morbidity and early mortality. New research by the University of Bristol has found that despite the health implications of childhood obesity, many GPs remain reluctant to discuss the topic with parents or to refer overweight children to weight reduction services.

The deployment of speed cameras in urban areas saves vast amounts of money as well as lives, reveals a two year financial analysis, published online in Injury Prevention.

Injury is the leading cause of death among people up to the age of 45 worldwide, with injuries sustained as a result of road traffic accidents accounting for more premature deaths than either heart disease or cancer.

Around 1.3 million people die every year, and between 20 and 50 million people become permanently disabled, as a result of injuries sustained in road traffic accidents.

Growing up on a livestock farm seems to be linked to an increased risk of developing blood cancers as an adult, indicates research published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The risk of developing a blood cancer was three times as high for those who had grown up on a poultry farm, the study shows.

Hard-to-match kidney transplant candidates who receive a treatment designed to make their bodies more accepting of incompatible organs are twice as likely to survive eight years after transplant surgery as those who stay on dialysis for years awaiting compatible organs, new Johns Hopkins research finds.

A team of researchers has identified the genetic mutation that causes Proteus syndrome, a rare disorder in which tissue and bone grows massively out of proportion. The discovery, which has implications for potential drug therapies and even cancer, appears in the July 27, 2011, early online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The team was led by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Menlo Park, Calif. – July 27, 2011 – An international team of scientists has successfully employed single molecule, real-time (SMRT™) DNA sequencing technology from Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ: PACB) to provide valuable insights into the pathogenicity and evolutionary origins of the highly virulent bacterium responsible for the German E. coli outbreak. Published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the results provide the most detailed genetic profile to date of the outbreak strain, including medically relevant information.

A team led by University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences researchers has unraveled the genomic code of the E. coli bacterium that caused the ongoing deadly outbreak in Germany that began in May 2011. To date, 53 people have died in the outbreak that has sickened thousand in Germany, Sweden and the U.S. The paper, published July 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), describes how researchers around the globe worked together to use cutting edge technology to sequence and analyze the genomics of E.