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Obama features health care law, contraception efforts in campaign kick-off speech

News outlets report that the president attacked his likely GOP rival, Mitt Romney, while highlighting his own health care record.

7 May 2012

Europe becoming 'hotspot' for emerging infections, study suggests

"Europe is becoming a 'hotspot' for emerging infections as those typically confined to tropical climates are making their way north, according to research that links climate change to the global spread of disease," the Financial Times reports.

3 May 2012

Researchers to examine how climate change may affect humans, societies

A new grant to awarded George Mason University's Center for Social Complexity will allow researchers to examine how climate change may affect humans and societies over the next 100 years.

3 May 2012

Two U-M hospitals receive LEED Silver certification

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital have been awarded LEED Silver certification established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

19 Apr 2012

Earth Day prompts examination of health-care providers' roles in climate change

Physicians and nurses have a role if not "a moral and professional responsibility to act" to help to reduce climate change and help those impacted, say the authors of "Climate Change & Health: Is There a Role for the Health Care Sector?," published by the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

18 Apr 2012

Study: Sharp increase in airborne pollens across Europe

When trees and plants release their pollen, millions of hay fever sufferers are affected by sneezing fits and itchy, watery eyes. Today in Germany, roughly every fourth person suffers from allergies - and this figure is set to rise. Climate change is seen as one of the factors fuelling the increase in allergic responses.

17 Apr 2012

First study to examine long-term effects of climate change on life expectancy

New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) suggests that seemingly small changes in summer temperature swings-as little as 1-C more than usual-may shorten life expectancy for elderly people with chronic medical conditions, and could result in thousands of additional deaths each year.

10 Apr 2012

Blood levels of PCBs in polar bear cubs appear to have dropped

It's never been easy to be a polar bear. They may have to go months without eating. Their preferred food, seal, requires enormous luck and patience to catch. Add to that the melting of Arctic sea ice due to climate change, and the poisoning of the Arctic by toxic chemicals, and it's easy to see why polar bears worldwide are in trouble.

30 Mar 2012

Scientists create first full 3-D images of vitamin B12

In a paper published recently in the journal Nature, scientists from the University of Michigan Health System and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report they have created the first full 3-D images of B12 and its partner molecules twisting and contorting as part of a crucial reaction called methyltransfer.

27 Mar 2012

Water scarcity may cause global instability, U.S. intelligence agencies say in report

U.S. intelligence agencies released a report on Thursday warning that "[d]rought, floods and a lack of fresh water may cause significant global instability and conflict in the coming decades, as developing countries scramble to meet demand from exploding populations while dealing with the effects of climate change," the Associated Press reports.

23 Mar 2012

Ensuring clean water for food, health requires 'collective action'

"As we mark World Water Day, the alarming statistics underlying water scarcity are worth repeating. Worldwide 2.7 billion people are currently affected by water shortages," Manish Bapna, acting president of the World Resources Institute (WRI), and Betsy Otto, director of WRI's Aqueduct Project, write in a Forbes opinion piece, noting that population growth, increasing food demand, and climate change threaten access to water.

23 Mar 2012

Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement honors two experts on air pollution

Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement honors two experts on air pollution with the 2012 Tyler Prize for their work to advance the scientific understanding of air pollution, and develop solutions to reduce the danger to human health and the impact on climate change.

20 Mar 2012

Health must be taken into account in climate change mitigation strategies

Health must be taken into account in climate change mitigation strategies. It is not widely appreciated that there are many benefits to health that are likely to accrue from a low carbon economy, say experts in a special supplement published on bmj.com today.

20 Mar 2012

Warming climate may increase risk from Chagas disease

In the spring of 1835, Charles Darwin was bitten in Argentina by a "great wingless black bug," he wrote in his diary. "It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one's body," Darwin wrote, "before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated with blood."

16 Mar 2012

Serious climate change-related health problems will affect the world's population

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper released today.

16 Mar 2012

FAO officials, country representatives meet in Vietnam to discuss food security, nutrition in Asia-Pacific region

Representatives of 40 member countries of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as well as senior officials from the agency, on Monday opened the 31st FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific in Hanoi, Vietnam, to "discuss in depth the issues of food security and rural poverty reduction," Xinhua/China Daily reports.

13 Mar 2012

Policy makers, scientists collaborate to create new science-policy research agenda

One only has to be reminded of the BSE crisis and the MMR vaccine scare to recognise the importance of having policy informed by the best available science. Now, a collaboration of over fifty academics and policy makers from around the world have come together to agree a new research agenda on the role of science in public policy.

12 Mar 2012

Salt resistant wheat developed using genomics

Matthew Gilliham, of the University of Adelaide, said the new variety of durum wheat would be made freely available to publicly funded breeding programs overseas. Field trials in Moree and at other sites across southern Australia have shown that the new variety has a grain yield in salty soil of up to 25 per cent higher than that of the standard variety.

12 Mar 2012

Incorporating gender policy in USAID programs is 'good business practice'

USAID Deputy Administrator Ambassador Donald Steinberg writes in the White House Council on Women and Girls blog, "I am proud to say that USAID" last week released "a new policy on gender quality and female empowerment, the Agency's first in 30 years," "achieving great strides and reaffirming our commitment to close the gender gap in international development."

7 Mar 2012

Project uses remote sensing to track and predict impact of climate change

Scientists from the University of Maryland and Beijing Normal University are partnering to track and predict the impact of climate change internationally.

29 Feb 2012