Body

Children with behavioral problems may be at risk of many chronic diseases in adulthood including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, as well as inflammatory illnesses (conditions which are caused by cell damage).

In recent years, Stanford biologists have found that coffee growers in Costa Rica bolster bird biodiversity by leaving patches of their plantations as untouched rainforest.

The latest finding from these researchers suggests that the birds are returning the favor to farmers by eating an aggressive coffee bean pest, the borer beetle, thereby improving coffee bean yields by hundreds of dollars per hectare.

A key requirement when performing scientific experiments is the accessibility of material resources, including the reagents or model organisms, needed to address a specific hypothesis. The published scientific literature is a source of this valuable information, but frequently lacks sufficient detail to the extent that researchers are unable to identify material resources used to perform experiments.

Amid growing competition for freshwater from industry and cities, coupled with a rising world shortage of potash, nitrogen and phosphorus, an international study predicts a rapid increase in the use of treated wastewater for farming and other purposes worldwide.

However, research shows that treated wastewater -- comparable in North America alone to the volume of water flowing over Niagara Falls -- is mostly unused and, in many nations, not even quantified.

Back of pack picture or text warnings depicting the dangers of smoking, make little impact on teen smokers, particularly those who smoke regularly, suggests research published online in Tobacco Control.

Pictorial warnings work better than text alone, but if positioned on the back of the pack are less visible and less effective, say the researchers.

In 2008 the UK became the third European Union country to require pictorial health warnings to be carried on the back of cigarette packs.

Becoming infected with chlamydia or gonorrhoea in the lead-up to, or during, pregnancy, increases the risk of complications, such as stillbirth or unplanned premature birth, indicates research published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The researchers analysed the birth records of more than 350,000 women who had had their first baby between 1999 and 2008 in New South Wales, Australia's most heavily populated state.

Even before they are born, babies accumulate changes in their DNA through a process called DNA methylation that may interfere with gene expression, and in turn, their health as they grow up. But until now it's been unclear just how long these changes during the prenatal period persist.

DURHAM, N.C. -- By studying hibernation, a Duke University team is providing a window into why humans sleep. Observations of a little-known primate called the fat-tailed dwarf lemur in captivity and the wild has revealed that it goes for days without the deepest part of sleep during its winter hibernation season. The findings support the idea that sleep plays a role in regulating body temperature and metabolism.

Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs are the only primates known to hibernate, and new research suggests their sleep patterns during hibernation are markedly different from those of ground squirrels, which also hibernate at similar temperatures. The results are published September 4 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Andrew Krystal and colleagues from Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Lemur Center.

Signs banning smoking may not have as much of an impact on secondhand smoke concentrations as the presence of ashtrays or ashtray equivalents, according to research published September 4 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Constantine Vardavas from the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues from other institutions.

Forests in the northeastern US have been radically transformed over the last four centuries by human activity, and their relationship with climate factors like rainfall weakened, according to research published September 4 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Jonathan Thompson and colleagues from the Smithsonian Institution.

A new, international study from the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium found that use of blood levels of cystatin C to estimate kidney function—alone or in combination with creatinine—strengthens the association between kidney function and risks of death and end-stage renal disease.

A new, international study from the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium found that use of blood levels of cystatin C to estimate kidney function—alone or in combination with creatinine—strengthens the association between kidney function and risks of death and end-stage renal disease.

This news release is available in French.

Vancouver, BC – A Terry Fox Research Institute(TFRI)-led study has developed a new clinical risk calculator software that accurately classifies, nine out of ten times, which spots or lesions (nodules) are benign and malignant on an initial lung computed tomography (CT) scan among individuals at high risk for lung cancer.

A new study of the megabladder mouse model suggests that tracking changes in the expression of key genes involved in kidney disease could help physicians predict the severity of urinary tract obstruction in pediatric patients, which could help identify children at the greatest risk of chronic kidney disease and permanent organ damage. The work was led by a team that includes Brian Becknell, MD, PhD, a clinician and assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology at Nationwide Children's Hospital.