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Short courses of antibiotics appear just as effective as longer ones- and a great deal safer - in treating respiratory infections that might cause pneumonia in children on temporary breathing devices, according to a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study published online May 3 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

PULLMAN, Wash.—A group of leading scientists, economists and farmers is calling for a broad shift in federal policies to speed the development of farm practices that are more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Writing in the journal Science, they say current policies focus on the production of a few crops and a minority of farmers while failing to address farming's contribution to global warming, biodiversity loss, natural resource degradation, and public health problems.

A new study of foot-and-mouth disease shows that cattle afflicted with the virus are only infectious for a brief window of time—about half as long as previously thought. This finding suggests that the controversial control measures used to halt the disease's spread, such as killing large numbers of livestock, could be reduced.

The discovery is also changing the way that scientists think about infectious diseases in general.

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a machine already in use for the measurement of impurities in semiconductors and used it to analyze immune cells in far more detail than has been possible before. The new technology lets scientists take simultaneous measurements of dozens of features located on and in cells, whereas the existing technology typically begins to encounter technical limitations at about a half-dozen.

(Edmonton) The obesity problem plaguing Canadians is a story heard frequently these days. For Katerina Maximova, making connections between the rising body mass index, or BMI, among native-born Canadian versus immigrant children has been the focus of a recent study.

Transformative changes in markets, policy and science, rather than just incremental changes in farming practices and technology, will be critical if the United States is to achieve long-term sustainability in agriculture, according to a nationwide team of agriculturists that includes a University of California, Davis, animal scientist.

New Rochelle, NY, May 5, 2011—When children or adolescents with asthma and their parents become overly anxious about the disorder, it may impair their ability to manage the asthma effectively. A new, effective tool to assess asthma-related anxiety is described in an article in Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study shows cats are the dominant predator to mockingbird eggs and nestlings in urban areas, prompting conservationists to urge pet owners to keep felines indoors at night.

The findings challenge assumptions that urban areas are places of refuge for nesting mockingbirds, a species researchers say plays an important role in controlling insect pests and serving as environmental indicators for metropolitan areas.

WASHINGTON — A draft plan to conserve habitat for endangered and threatened fishes in the California Bay-Delta while continuing to divert water for agricultural and personal use in central and southern California has critical missing components, including clearly defined goals and a scientific analysis of the proposed project's potential impacts on delta species, says a new report from the National Research Council. In addition, the scientific information in the plan is fragmented and presented in an unconnected manner, making its meaning difficult to understand.

COLLEGE STATION, May 4, 2011 – The so-called "bad cholesterol" – low-density lipoprotein commonly called LDL – may not be so bad after all, shows a Texas A&M University study that casts new light on the cholesterol debate, particularly among adults who exercise.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a specific gene in corn that appears to be associated with resistance to three important plant leaf diseases.

In a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, NC State plant pathologists and crop scientists pinpoint the gene – glutathione S-transferase – that seems to confer resistance to Southern leaf blight, gray leaf spot and Northern leaf blight, a trio of diseases that cripple corn plants worldwide.

A new study identifies the mutation that underlies a rare, inherited accelerated-aging disease and provides key insight into normal human aging. The research, published by Cell Press online May 5 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, highlights the importance of a cellular structure called the "nuclear envelope" in the process of aging.

DALLAS, May 5, 2011 – A UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has identified the most comprehensive measurement to date of estrogen's effect on breast cancer cells, showing for the first time how immediate and extensive the effect is.

The findings, published online today and in the May 13 print edition of the journal Cell, could lead to a new set of therapeutic applications and provide a model for understanding rapid signal-dependent transcription in other biological systems.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, after isolating normal stem cells that form the developing placenta, have given them the same properties of stem cells associated with an aggressive type of breast cancer.

The scientific first opens the door for developing novel targeted therapies aimed at triple negative breast cancer. Known also as TNBC, this is a highly recurrent tumor that spreads aggressively beyond its original site in the breast and carries a poor prognosis for patients who have it.

An international team of researchers co-led by a University of Minnesota scientist has sequenced the genomes of two fungal pathogens -- one that threatens global wheat supplies and another that limits production of a tree crop valued as a future source for biofuel.