‘Microland’ Can Help Fight Poverty, Especially Among Women In a Forbes column, Elisabeth Eaves, deputy editor at Forbes, examines the concept of “‘microland:’ securing rights to small plots of land for the world’s poorest.
Hikers know that moss on a tree trunk always points north. According to new research by Israeli and German scientists, this ancient plant may also provide a new “compass” for stem cell research, telling scientists how better to program stem cells for medical purposes. Dr. Nir Ohad of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Plant Sciences and Prof. Ralf Reski of the University of Freiburg have discovered a new use for the Polycomb group proteins (PcG) found in moss.
Soybeans contain high levels of several health-beneficial compounds including tocopherols, which have antioxidant properties. These molecules can be used in the development of functional foods, which have specific health-beneficial properties and can be used in the treatment or prevention of diseases. Tocopherols exist in four forms (α, β, γ, and δ) of which γ-tocopherol is found in greatest concentration in soybeans.
Plumes of harmful air pollutants can be transported across oceans and continents — from Asia to the United States and from the United States to Europe — and have a negative impact on air quality far from their original sources, says a new report by the National Research Council.
The Health Department in the Philippines “warned Monday of a possible spread of infectious diseases” in the capital of Manila, which has had the largest rainfall “in nearly half a century, according to the government weather bureau,” the New York Times reports. Rains have flooded “80 percent of this metropolis of 12 million people” and killed at least 240 so far.
The Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and The Science Coalition (TSC) have released highlighted examples of the important scientific work happening across the country as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The brief report summarizes just a handful of the thousands of projects benefiting from stimulus dollars.
Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D., interim executive director and CEO of the Natural Products Association (NPA), will testify today before the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing examining the illegal marketing of steroids as dietary supplements.
The growth of sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural sector in 2008 is a “a break with the past,” but “concerted and purposeful policy action” is required for developments to continue, according to a new U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) paper, VOA News reports (De Capua, 9/28).
New mothers who are breastfeeding their babies may need more aerobic and resistance exercise in order to combat temporary bone loss caused by calcium depletion, says a recently published study from the American College of Sports Medicine. Cheryl Lovelady, Ph.D., and her research team measured bone mineral density in 20 women four to 20 weeks postpartum and found that those who didn’t exercise lost around 7 percent of their lower-spine bone density in that time period.
New research from the US suggests that wearing shoes such as high heels, pumps and sandals was strongly linked in women’s later life with heel and ankle pain. The researchers found nearly 64 per cent of older women who reported hind-foot pain regularly wore such shoes at some point in their lives whereas no link was found between foot pain and the types of shoes men wore. The study was the work of lead author Alyssa B.