Scientists have assessed the overall impact of grenades and concluded that even during peacetime, stockpiling these munitions can cause significant environmental damage.

Elisabeth Hochschorner and colleagues from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm showed that during peacetime, the mining of metals used in grenade construction and the energy costs needed to produce them cause significant environmental impact. The residues emitted during practice detonations top the li

’Genetic vulnerability’ likely in excessive caffeine use

A study led by Johns Hopkins investigators has shown that women with a serious caffeine habit and a family history of alcohol abuse are more likely to ignore advice to stop using caffeine during pregnancy. Withdrawal symptoms, functional impairment and craving were cited by the women as reasons they could not cut out or cut back on caffeine use.
None of the women had a current alcohol-use diagnosis, and none ha

A team of scientists at UCSF has made a critical discovery that may help in the development of techniques to promote functional recovery after a spinal cord injury.

By stimulating nerve cells in laboratory rats at the time of the injury and then again one week later, the scientists were able to increase the growth capacity of nerve cells and to sustain that capacity. Both factors are critical for nerve regeneration.

The study, reported in the November 15 issu

Study Finds That Nutritionally Enhanced Rice Reduces Iron Deficiency
Breakthrough may lead to improved nutrition for millions of poor people

Breeding rice with higher levels of iron can have an important impact on reducing micronutrient malnutrition, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition. The research, conducted by scientists from the Philippines and the United States, is a major step forward in the battle against iron deficiency, one of the developing world’s

Researchers might have found evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome is a real and legitimate neurological condition. A pilot study published today in the open access journal BMC Neurology reveals that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have a set of proteins in their spinal cord fluid that were not detected in healthy individuals. These proteins might give insight into the causes of CFS, and could be used as markers to diagnose patients with CFS.

James Baraniuk and Begona Casad

Cannabis intoxication and fatal road crashes in France: population based case-control study BMJ Online First

Driving under the influence of cannabis almost doubles the risk of a fatal road crash, finds a study published online by the BMJ today. However its share in fatal crashes is significantly lower than those involving alcohol.

The study took place in France and involved 10,748 drivers who were involved in fatal crashes from October 2001 to September 2003. All drivers

Animal study advances call for early implants in children born deaf

New research at Johns Hopkins has clearly demonstrated the ability of cochlear implants in very young animals to forge normal nerve fibers that transmit sound and to restore hearing by reversing or preventing damage to the brain’s auditory system.

The findings in cats, published in Science online Dec. 2, help explain why implants are up to 80 percent successful in restoring hearing in young children born

Increase believed to offer breast cancer protection

Moderate physical activity, which is believed to help reduce the risk of breast cancer, may do so because it increases production of a hormone believed to have protective effects against the disease, a Canadian research team has learned.

Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital’s Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto have completed a study of how light and other factors, such as physical activity, influence the

A team of researchers led by the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute have determined that the corneal infection rate associated with the use of 30-day -extended-wear contact lenses made from silicone hydrogel is comparable to that previously reported for older lens types worn for fewer consecutive 24-hour periods.

The study, published in the Dec. 1 issue of Ophthalmology, recruited 6,245 patients, 64 percent of them women with an average age of 35, from 131 practices in North

Taina Vuorela’s (Phil. Lic.) will defend here dissertation entitled “Approaches to a Business Negotiation Case Study: Teamwork, Humour and Teaching” at the Helsinki School of Economics (Main Building, Great Hall) on December 7 at 12.00 noon. The field of the study is international business communication. Professor (emeritus) Kari Sajavaara, PhD, (Jyväskylä University) will act as opponent and Professor Mirjaliisa Charles, PhD, (Helsinki School of Economics) as custodian.

The startin

A new book by Francis Green, Professor of Economics at the University of Kent, is about to have a major impact on how we perceive the quality of work and working life.

Titled Demanding Work: The Paradox of Job Quality in the Affluent Economy (Princeton University Press), Professor Green’s book uses information drawn from high-quality social surveys and administrative data to present a unique and authoritative account of changing job quality in contemporary society.

In his

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.

Hanson and Gluckman, who respectively head the Centre for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) at the University of Southampton, and the Liggins Instit

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.

“Many parents don’t seem to be aware of the potential dangers of private go-karts,” said David Cline, M.D., an emergency medicine specialist and one of the study researchers. “M

The first large-scale study to see whether trained volunteers and lay people can use defibrillators to save the lives of cardiac arrest (CA) victims has concluded that their use by lay people is safe, and if the response time can be shortened to within eight minutes there is the potential to save the lives of 15 out of 100 people who collapse suddenly with CA.

Brescia in Italy – a large mixed rural and urban county with an area of more than 4,800 square kilometres and a population of wel

The University of Surrey’s (UniS) Postgraduate Medical School’s (PGMS) first clinical postgraduate taught degree programme got off to a flying start earlier this month – not only is it the first clinical postgraduate programme to be delivered by PGMS, but it is also the first clinical MSc programme for gynaecologists of its kind in the world.

The MSc in Advanced Gynaecological Endoscopy is a collaborative programme run between the University of Surrey’s Postgraduate Medical School and

Digital mammography images can be accurately transmitted over broadband Internet, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

“We’ve proven that telemammography works,” said the study’s lead author, Alan R. Melton, M.D., assistant clinical professor of radiology at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “The ability to transmit mammograms over long dista