science wire

Like animals, plants go through several stages of development before they reach maturity. It has long been thought that some of the transitions between these stages are triggered by changes in the nutritional status of the plant. Now, based on experiments with the plant Arabidopsis thaliana , a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Biology has provided fresh insights into the role of sugar in "vegetative phase change," the transition from the juvenile form of a plant to the adult plant.

A team of five students from the UW-Madison La Follette School won first place for their strategies to combat childhood obesity in a national public affairs competition in Washington, D.C. March 22-23.

Hockey legend Mats Sundin built a career around healthy living, good nutrition, exercise and physical fitness. Now, the former Toronto Maple Leafs captain is pairing with the University of Toronto's Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development to stamp out childhood obesity - and all the chronic, lifelong health problems that result from it.

Rendering some of the world's toxic soils moot, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and Cornell researchers are learning to grow stress-tolerant crops on formerly non-farmable land.

Primary and secondary school students are five times as likely to be high consumers of sugar-sweetened drinks, such as soft drinks, if these drinks are available in their homes, according to a University of Sydney study published in the journal Preventive Medicine today.

A new study that analysed the effects of an intervention which succeeded in improving the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding during infancy - involving nearly 14,000 healthy infants in Belarus, Eastern Europe - found that it did not result in a lower risk of overweight or obesity among the children at age 11.5 years.

In the race to adapt to climate change, weeds may be the winners. Understanding their well-honed coping mechanisms could inform strategies for ecological management, says a Cornell crop and soil researcher.

Green calorie labels may lead people to see nutrition-poor foods in a healthier light.

Press Release from Umeå University A world renowned expert in obesity research will be visiting Umeå University on Thursday 14 March, including holding a lecture in Aula Nordica.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have joined forces with colleagues at the University of NSW and University of Technology, Sydney to launch a world-first weight management program for young adults - to be delivered via mobile phones.

Buy Fresh Buy Local is a nationally promoted trademark of the FoodRoutes Network, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) located in Millheim, PA.

Support is needed in child care centers to help meet existing water policies and new water requirements included in the 2010 Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, according to a study published by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The study, published in the March/April 2013 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, is the first to document availability and accessibility of water in compliance with state and federal policy, and accreditation standards in child care centers.

Fat. Sugar. Salt. Americans have a love-hate relationship with these ingredients. We know we should consume them in moderation.

Australia's first multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to tackling the nation's and region's biggest food security and environmental challenges, through the integrated study of carbon, food and water, has been launched today by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

A new milestone in Australian and Chinese collaboration has been reached today with the signing of agreements between the University of Sydney and two premier Chinese research institutions to tackle the mutual challenge of food security.

When it comes to food choice, Nadia Byrnes is something of a natural. "My friends always joke that when they need a new place to eat they don't Google it, they just ask me," says the Penn State doctoral student.

The walls of the body's major artery - the aorta - are already thickened in babies born to mothers who are overweight or obese, according to a University of Sydney study published online in the Fetal and Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease of Childhood . The study found that, importantly, this arterial thickening, which is a sign of heart disease, is independent of the child's weight at birth - a known risk factor for later heart disease and stroke.

By Rhonda Stewart/ Institute For Health Metrics And Evaluation; Bobbi Nodell/ Global Health Posted under: Health and Medicine , News Releases , Research , Science , Social Science , UW and the Community Americans are living longer, but health in the United States is being severely eroded by poor lifestyle choices such as unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, smoking, and use of alcohol and drugs.

ANN ARBOR-Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology have received a $1 million grant to study how exercise and other therapies might work differently in lean and obese individuals. Greg Cartee, U-M professor of movement science, and his colleagues at the Muscle Biology Laboratory hope to clarify the link between insulin, exercise and sugar uptake by studying how lean and obese rats respond to exercise.

ANN ARBOR-Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology have received a $1 million grant to study how exercise and other therapies might work differently in lean and obese individuals. Greg Cartee, U-M professor of movement science, and his colleagues at the Muscle Biology Laboratory hope to clarify the link between insulin, exercise and sugar uptake by studying how lean and obese rats respond to exercise.

In attempts to reverse U.S. childhood obesity trends, minimal, inexpensive changes in school lunchrooms yielded a nearly 20 percent increase in fruit consumption and a 25 percent increa

Food banks are altering their nutrition-related policies and practices to address concerns about the rise in obesity and diet-related diseases among individuals struggling to afford food, according to a study by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.

Stanford Report, February 25, 2013 Study reveals scale of nitrogen's effect on people and ecosystems. It's no secret that China is faced with some of the world's worst pollution. Until now, however, information on the magnitude, scope and impacts of a major contributor to that pollution - human-caused nitrogen emissions - was lacking.

Hoping to gain a better understanding of the world's largest staple crop, the National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $7 million grant to Michael J. Scanlon, Cornell professor of plant biology.

The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has launched a new, free resource to aid members of broadcast media in the creation and delivery of fair, unbiased video coverage of obesity and weight-related topics on television, video, and online.

News Release MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/13/2013) —Sustainable bioenergy, microgrids, energy storage and more are among the peer-reviewed investments in clean energy advances being funded

Researchers at Cornell have developed a strain of maize with a high iron bioavailability, meaning more of the iron that is present naturally in these maize lines can be absorbed. The researchers, all from the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service's Robert Holley Center on the Cornell campus, tested more than 100 maize strains for differences in iron bioavailability.

Entomologist Elson Shields, who spearheaded the development of a biocontrol practice for controlling alfalfa snout beetle (ASB), will receive the Entomological Foundation Award for Excellence in IPM in March at the Entomological Society of America meeting.

After a naming challenge drew 1,100 suggestions from around the world, a Cornell breeder has revealed the secret identities of two new wine grapes: Arandell and Aromella.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - While honey bee populations dwindle across the globe, Penn State researchers aim to use communication technologies to spread revolutionary beekeeping techniques that will help offset the effects of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

In the first studies to examine what the public thinks about people with an addiction to food, researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale found that while this addiction is less vulnerable to public stigma than others, it could increase the stigma already associated with obesity.

Obesity kills, giving rise to a host of fatal diseases. This much is well known. But when it comes to seniors, a slew of prominent research has reported an "obesity paradox" that says, at age 65 and older, having an elevated BMI won't shorten your lifespan, and may even extend it. A new study takes another look at the numbers, finding the earlier research flawed.

News Release Media Note: Details about individual projects are available from the researchers and on the HFHL website: http://www.hfhl.umn.edu.

At a time when 25% of the adult population is considered to be obese and the annual cost of the national obesity epidemic is estimated at £5 billon, a Plymouth-based research project that introduced young men and older people to sustainable and healthy food activities points to innovative partnership solutions.

Small-scale sustainable agriculture may offer a better route out of poverty as well as a path to food sufficiency.

Soil science will be fundamental in overcoming the growing threat of global food and fuel crop shortages as the world's population continues to rise, according to innovative research by a University of Sheffield expert.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. It has been almost 20 years since the first genetically modified foods showed up in produce aisles throughout the United States and the rest of the world, but controversy continues to surround the products and their regulation. Bruce Chassy , a professor emeritus of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes that after thousands of research studies and worldwide planting, "genetically modified foods pose no special risks to consumers or the environment" and are overregulated.

Dietary changes since the early 1960s have fueled a sharp increase in the amount of mined phosphorus used to produce the food consumed by the average person over the course of a year, according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University.

In 1950, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology sent scholars to a site in central Turkey, about 50 miles southwest of Ankara. There they began an effort to uncover - literally and figuratively - details about the societies and cultures of the people who lived there hundreds to thousands of years before.

With heatwaves predicted to increase in intensity and duration, the importance of heat tolerant crops is becoming increasingly urgent.

Chefs and home cooks in the eastern U.S. could soon have easier access to a local "super food," thanks to a Cornell-led team of researchers working to expand broccoli's availability at farms, farmer's markets and grocery stores from Maine to Florida.

HERSHEY, Pa. While the number of overweight and obese Americans has increased, the amount of weight counseling offered by primary care physicians has decreased - especially for patients with high blood pressure and diabetes - according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. More than 145 million adult Americans are overweight or obese.

Weight divided by height squared. The simple formula known as body mass index, or BMI, is used every day by doctors, researchers and others to determine who among us is obese, and therefore at risk for a host of health problems. But what if BMI isn't the best way to measure obesity? In recent years, a chorus of voices has expressed doubts.

With the start of a new year, many of us make resolutions to lose weight and exercise more often. But why don't our New Year's resolutions have staying power?

ANN ARBOR-People setting a goal to lose weight in 2013 may want to first ask themselves if diet or exercise is more important to success.

ANN ARBOR-We know high-fat, high-sugar foods cause obesity and promote heart disease, but most people don't realize that sugar and fat also contribute to conditions like osteoporosis by weakening bones.

Illinois professor Sheldon H. Jacobson led a study that found an association between automobile travel, caloric intake and national average BMI. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Those considering how to maintain a healthy weight during holiday festivities, or looking ahead to New Year's resolutions, may want to think twice before reaching for traditional staples like cookies or candy - or the car keys.

Want your children to eat more nutritional snacks? Serve them vegetables and cheese instead of potato chips - they will eat up to 72 percent fewer calories and be just as satisfied, reports a new Cornell study published online in the journal Pediatrics. "Snack combos are fun to eat, and they take longer to eat than potato chips.