Archive for November, 2005



Q-Fever: A Global Health Risk

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
The decision to stop production of the vaccine for Q-Fever will leave Australia and the international community vulnerable to the health risks of Q-Fever infection, according to one of the country’s leading researchers.
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Overfishing In Inland Waters Reduces Biodiversity And Threatens Health

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Overfishing of fresh waters occurs worldwide but is largely unrecognized because of weak reporting and because other pressures can obscure fishery declines. Threats to freshwater fisheries and associated biodiversity have received scant attention from conservation groups and the media but have serious implications for human welfare, especially in devoloping countries.
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Study Reveals Severity Of Go-cart Injuries

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
A Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center study of children who were hospitalized from motorized go-cart accidents found that the average hospital stay was almost five days and that more than half of children required at least one operation — and almost a third required two or more operations.
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When Worlds Collide: Cornell Astronomers Investigate Cosmic Forces That Produce New Galaxies

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
When galaxies collide (as our galaxy, the Milky Way, eventually will with the nearby Andromeda galaxy), what happens to matter that gets spun off in the collision’s wake? With help from the Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared spectrograph, Cornell astronomers are beginning to piece together an answer to that question.
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New Research Shows How Evolution Explains Age Of Puberty

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Children aged 10 and 11 are sexually mature, and neither they nor society are suitably prepared for the implications of that. This is the message of Professors Mark Hanson and Peter Gluckman, whose review of the evolution of puberty is published online this week in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.
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Crystal Sponges Excel At Sopping Up Carbon Dioxide

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Since the Industrial Revolution, levels of carbon dioxide–a major contributor to the greenhouse effect–have been on the rise, prompting scientists to search for ways of counteracting the trend. One of the main strategies is removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the flue exhaust of power plants, using porous materials that take up the gas as it travels up the flue.
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Coffee And Tea Can Reduce The Risk Of Chronic Liver Disease

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
A study published today in the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) journal Gastroenterology found that people at high risk for liver injury may be able to reduce their risk for developing chronic liver disease significantly by drinking more than two cups of coffee or tea daily. This is the first study to take a prospective look at the relationship between coffee and tea consumption and chronic liver disease in the general U.S. population.
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Needle-free Immunizations: Reducing The Risk Of Cross-contamination From Needle Reuse

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Samir Mitragotri, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says the myriad shortcomings of injections have led to active research and development of needle-free methods of immunization. While most people prefer to avoid injections, the stakes are enormously higher than just helping people avoid a disagreeable prick of a needle.
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Men And Women Differ In Brain Use During Same Tasks

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
New research from the University of Alberta shows that men and women utilize different parts of their brains while they perform the same tasks. The results of the research are reported this month in the journal NeuroImage. The study involved volunteers who performed memory tasks, verbal tasks, visual spatial tasks and simple motor tasks while their brain activity was monitored with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology.
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Hair Follicle Stem Cells Contribute To Wound Healing

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Hair follicle stem cells are important contributors to the wound-healing process, according to new research by investigators at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Using an animal model, the researchers discovered that stem cells in the hair follicle are enlisted to help heal wounds in the skin. This finding may suggest a therapeutic target for the development of drugs to encourage and promote wound healing.
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