Climate may influence prevailing rates of asthma and eczema indicates an international study of almost 670,000 children in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Marked seasonal variations in temperature, altitude, outdoor humidity and latitude all affected rates of asthma and eczema.

The conclusions are based on data collected between 1992 and 1996 from children 6 to 7 and 12 to 13 years old from over 50 countries taking part the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Ch

Cooking with gas seems to increase the risk of respiratory illness, indicates research in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Parents of 426 children living in two housing estates in Hong Kong were surveyed about their children’s health. One of the estates was located in an area of high environmental pollution.

None of the children, whose ages ranged from a few months up to 6 years old, had yet started school, so were likely to spend a good deal of time indoors.

Their pa

A small Ohio study has offered the first published evidence that aggressively treating brain blood clots at their source soon after symptoms start can produce a good outcome for many stroke patients.

In the study, published in a recent issue of the journal Neurosurgery, 50 percent of stroke patients had little or no neurological disability one to three months after clot-dissolving medication was delivered directly to the site of the blockages, compared to 39 percent of patients with similar

Study results published in the August issue of the journal Cancer reinforce previous findings that the laminin-8 genes and the resulting protein may be highly valuable targets in the fight against malignant brain tumors.

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute report that over-expression of laminin-8 can be used as a predictor of a tumor’s grade, its potential for recurrence, and the patient’s length of survival. This follows their earlier findings that laminin-

By making use of model compounds in drug design, chemists at the University of California, San Diego identified a class of molecules that could lead to treatments for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, arthritis, and heart disease.

Enzymes—protein catalysts—in the body that help break down connective tissue like collagen are important in growth and wound healing, but also play a role in many diseases. For example, these enzymes are overactive in arthritis and are used by cancer cell

Ovarian stimulation of male steroids is the culprit behind this disorder.

A woman finds herself with excessive facial hair, obesity, menstrual abnormalities, infertility, and enlarged ovaries may have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), an unfortunate condition thought to be caused by excessive secretion by the ovaries of androgen, a hormone associated with male characteristics. Men and women both have hormones expressing male and female characteristics. Yet, the cause of this excess

American students are happy to find jobs during the summer to help pay for their schooling. Others are more fortunate to be part of intern programs that prepare them for their eventual professional lives. For some others, however, the summer prospects are even more rewarding. How about an opportunity to construct carbon nanotubes in a Sydney, Australia laboratory? What about the chance to study with a molecular virologist in Taipei to search for a potential HIV cure? Or maybe do research based on a f

Sales of Biofuels exceeded $ 12 billion in 2003 worldwide. High growth in 2004. The greening Automotive Industry in China.

In some countries the costs for biofuel are today lower than traditional oil and that’s only the beginning of a new development for many countries to be oil-free in the next 30 years. Nanobiotechnology will improve the biomass production by shaping molecules to design “energyplants” and optimize the biotechnology process. Nanotechnology and converging biotechnol

The forests of the world are not the stable and unchanging ecosystems they have been assumed to be. Without the occurrence of wide-spread disturbances in nature, such as forest fires, icing, or volcanic activity, forests will eventually be impoverished, owing to a lack of phosphorous.

This is shown in a study reported in this week’s issue of the journal Science. The scientists who carried out the investigation are David Wardle, Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology, Swedish University

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) costs the United States over $9 billion each year in lost productivity according to an article published today in the Open Access journal Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation. This estimate, which is similar to the financial losses caused by digestive system disorders or infectious and parasitic diseases, does not include healthcare costs, which are likely to be substantial.

According to the study authors, “The extent of the burden indicates that contin

People retiring in the next decade or so will live considerably healthier, more active and longer lives than their predecessors. But according to research by James Banks and colleagues, many are drastically underestimating the chances of their retirement lasting at least 10 years – and hence may not be saving ‘enough`.

The first results of Banks et al’s study of people’s expected longevity – which draw on data gathered in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and are published in ESRC’s

In a series of studies in breast cancer patients, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have confirmed the presence of “chemobrain” after chemotherapy treatment – but they also discovered that a significant portion of patients have cognitive declines even before chemotherapy. The studies, the latest of which is reported June 21 in the online edition of the journal Cancer, are the first to document such pretreatment losses in patients with non-metastatic breast c

Scientists have induced a movement disorder in rats that closely resembles Parkinson’s disease in humans. The study, published June 21, 2004, in the online edition of the Annals of Neurology, suggests that natural toxins found in the environment could contribute to the development of this debilitating movement disorder. The full study will be available via Wiley InterScience.

The compounds, called proteasome inhibitors, can be produced by bacteria and fungi. Man-made proteasome inhibitors

“AIDS is now the leading cause of death in military and police forces in some African countries, accounting for more than half of in-service mortality,” write Ugboga Nwokoji and Ademola Ajuwon in the Open Access journal BMC Public Health today. They believe that secrecy about AIDS-related deaths, and multiple sex partnering in the Nigerian navy could be helping to fuel the HIV epidemic in Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country.

Their survey of 480 Nigerian naval personnel revealed that

Early and accurate detection of oncological disease is critical to the treatment and, ultimately, survival of patients suffering from cancer. In an effort to determine the accuracy of an integrated PET/CT scanner with more traditional diagnostic imaging methods for whole-body, malignant tumors, researchers in Essen, Germany, compared the imaging results of the integrated FDG-PET/CT with CT images alone, PET images alone, and CT and PET images viewed side-by-side.

The scientists theorized

Advances in the study of the salmonella bacteria, being undertaken at the Pamplona Institute of Agrobiotechnology and Natural Resources and led by professor Iñigo Lasa Uzcudun of the Public University of Navarre, have been recognised in the principal international magazine in the field of Microbiology, Molecular Microbiology, at a congress held recently in the German city of Heidelberg.

The Navarre researchers are analysing the role that a new family of Salmonella typhimurium proteins pl