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U.S. DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory develops new carbon cycling model

A new carbon cycling model developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory better accounts for the carbon dioxide-releasing activity of microbes in the ground, improving scientists' understanding of the role soil will play in future climate change.

17 Aug 2012

Medical ethics: an interview with Anita Silvers

Medical ethics assists healthcare professionals to make decisions respectful of persons who happen to be their patients.

13 Aug 2012

China must bring together different agencies to address water shortages, policy paper says

In a policy paper published in Science on Thursday, researchers praised China's January 2011 plan to address water shortages and conservation in the nation, but "the researchers said this commitment won't be enough unless disparate agencies learn to communicate and coordinate with each other," Reuters reports.

12 Aug 2012

Organ donation: an interview with David Shaw

Most donors die in intensive care units, frequently after car accidents. Once it is clear that recovery is out of the question, families will be told that further treatment is futile and the issue of donation can be sensitively raised.

9 Aug 2012

Improve investment in agriculture to meet growing demands

Extreme weather is forcing grain and meat prices to rise, and food production will have to increase about 60 percent over the next 40 years to meet a growing world population, but "there are solutions to these daunting problems," Catherine Bertini, former director of the U.N. World Food Programme and the 2003 World Food Prize laureate, and Dan Glickman, former secretary of agriculture, write in a Politico opinion piece.

8 Aug 2012

Preventing falls in older people through balance and strength training

Balance and strength training that is integrated into everyday activities can reduce the number of falls among older people by almost a third, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

8 Aug 2012

UCSB researcher hopes to find out contaminants in urban water environment

What contaminants lurk in the urban subsurface, and what happens to them once they're there? Do they make their way into storm drains and creeks to reach groundwater, or even oceans? Or do they naturally attenuate as they migrate through soils, somehow allowing them to self-cleanse as they travel? A UC Santa Barbara researcher hopes to find out, thanks to a generous new gift to fund her work.

8 Aug 2012

Organ donation wishes should not be allowed to be vetoed by families says ethicist

Families should not be allowed to veto dead relatives’ organ donation wishes, argues an ethicist on bmj.com today.

8 Aug 2012

Study looks at why and to whom people give souvenir gifts

Although it may not seem like much, the small wooden figurine Grandma brought back from the Holy Land has been blessed. She gives the souvenir to her grandchildren knowing she has done her job: deliver God into their lives.

8 Aug 2012

Study finds female athletes rarely and ineffectively used as ad spokespeople

Your best chance to see a female athlete endorsing a product will be during the next few weeks. The Olympics' commercial breaks may be littered with female swimmers, runners and gymnasts, but don't expect to see them much again until the next Olympics. American companies rarely employ female athletes as spokespeople and when they do, according to two University of Delaware professors, they most often do it poorly.

31 Jul 2012

Yeast gene can increase ethanol production yield by up to 34%

iDiverse announced that it has discovered a yeast gene that when inserted into yeast and properly modulated can increase ethanol production yield by up to 34%.

23 Jul 2012

Green plants in city streets can effectively reduce levels of air pollutants

Trees, bushes and other greenery growing in the concrete-and-glass canyons of cities can reduce levels of two of the most worrisome air pollutants by eight times more than previously believed, a new study has found. A report on the research appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

19 Jul 2012

New report compares Gen X attitudes about climate change in 2009 and 2011

As the nation suffers through a summer of record-shattering heat, a University of Michigan report finds that Generation X is lukewarm about climate change-uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers.

19 Jul 2012

Lack of physical activity causes 1 in 10 deaths

A lack of physical activity, or people’s failure to spend 150 minutes a week doing moderate physical activity (eg, brisk walking for 30 minutes, 5 days a week), causes around 6–10% of four major non-communicable diseases (coronary heart disease [CHD], type 2 diabetes, and breast and colon cancer) worldwide, and was responsible for around 5.3 million of the 57 million deaths globally in 2008.

18 Jul 2012

Giving up smoking associated with weight gain

Giving up smoking is associated with an average weight gain of 4-5 kg after 12 months, most of which occurs within the first three months of quitting, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

11 Jul 2012

Euthanasia and assisted suicide rates in the Netherlands comparable to rates before legalisation

2010 rates of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands were comparable to levels before the practices were legalised in 2002, according to new research published Online First in The Lancet and conducted by a Dutch research team from Erasmus MC University Medical Centre, Rotterdam; VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam; Statistics Netherlands, The Hague; and Utrecht’s University Medical Centre.

11 Jul 2012

Elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 accelerate soil carbon loss in forests

Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide accelerate carbon cycling and soil carbon loss in forests, new research led by an Indiana University biologist has found.

11 Jul 2012

Injury at work more likely for overqualified recent immigrants

Men who are recent immigrants and over qualified for their jobs are more than three times as likely to sustain an injury at work as their appropriately qualified peers who have been in the country for some time, suggests Canadian research published online in Injury Prevention.

10 Jul 2012

Sitting down for less than 3 hours a day could extend life expectancy

Restricting the amount of time spent seated every day to less than 3 hours might boost the life expectancy of US adults by an extra 2 years, indicates an analysis of published research in the online journal BMJ Open.

10 Jul 2012

Does alcohol kill brain cells?

Several origins have been suggested for the idea that alcohol kills brain cells. Some link it to the temperance movement, which called for prohibition of alcohol.

9 Jul 2012