science wire

When it comes to cooking, grocery shopping and playing with children, American moms with full-time jobs spend roughly three-and-half fewer hours per day on these and other chores related to their children's diet and exercise compared to stay-at-home and unemployed mothers, reports a new paper by a Cornell economist.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is moving ahead with a $75-million initiative to upgrade research and teaching facilities to support the industries that make some of the state's most iconic agricultural products. Last week, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a plan to provide half of the funds for a new livestock and poultry products laboratory and remodeling and expansion of pilot plants in Babcock Hall used for dairy product research and instruction and manufacture of products like cheese and ice cream.

A YouGov Cambridge poll has revealed widespread affection for agriculture, even though there is a surprising level of ignorance about the sector and its contribution to the economy.

Melbourne scientists studying the impact obesity has on pregnancy, are urging men to get 'match fit' before conceiving to assist with fetal development. Reproductive experts from the University of Melbourne's Department of Zoology have discovered that a father's obesity negatively impacts sperm, resulting in smaller fetuses, poor pregnancy success and reduced placental development.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Farming in the city is a hot topic in some circles, but an exact picture of urban agriculture has not yet been painted.

Cornell helped organize the first West Africa Conference on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, July 26-27, to evaluate SRI's potential in the regio

The commercialization of shrub willow as a bioenergy crop could be years closer, thanks to a $1.37 million grant that will allow Cornell researchers to take advantage of the newly mapped shrub willow genome to study hybrid vigor and yield.

New book by R. Ford Denison presents unique approach to efficient and sustainable agriculture MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (07/25/2012) —The largest drought in 50 years has severely damaged much of the nation's "corn belt" and is threatening the viability of Minnesota's 2012 corn crop.

Learning how to run, jump, kick and catch are skills many children are struggling to accomplish, with major implications for their general health, according to a landmark study led by the University of Sydney. "If a child has not mastered what you might call the building blocks of physical activities they will not have the skill or confidence to do them.

Just because healthful foods are available in school cafeterias doesn't mean children are going to eat them, but in some cases, the very presence of such foods as whole fruit may actually prompt kids to make healthier choices, even if fruit is never selected.

New research shows how we can innovate our way out of a double crisis With widespread hunger continuing to haunt developing nations, and obesity fast becoming a global epidemic, any number of efforts

Scientists at The University of Nottingham believe they've found a way of fighting obesity — with a pioneering technique which uses thermal imaging. This heat-seeking technology is being used to trace our reserves of brown fat — the body's 'good fat' — which plays a key role in how quickly our body can burn calories as energy.

When is lunch not just lunch? When someone in a romantic relationship shares a meal with an ex-lover, finds two Cornell studies that looked at jealousy and shared meals. The studies find that people who are part of couples tend to think that sharing food with others might lead to shared intimacy.

The language that health care providers use when discussing their patients' body weight can reinforce stigma, reduce motivation for weight loss, and potentially lead to avoidance of future medical appointments, according to a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale. The study, which appears in the advance online publication of the International Journal of Obesity, examined adults' perceptions of, and reactions to, common terms used to describe excess body weight by doctors.

Supermarket ready-meals are 'nutritionally chaotic', according to a study by scientists at the University of Glasgow which calls for improvements to be made. Researchers led by Professor Mike Lean, Chair of Nutrition in the School of Medicine, looked at four different ready-meals across four different ranges at the five major UK supermarket chains of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury, Morrisons and the Co-op.

An estimated 3.8 million California adults — particularly those in households with children, as well as low-income Latinos — could not afford to put adequate food on the table duri

Through a new agreement between the New York State Berry Growers Association (NYSBGA) and the Cornell berry breeding program, raspberry and strawberry growers across the state will evaluate elite selections from the university in their own fields.

A University of Glasgow scientist and an entrepreneur have teamed up to create what they claim is the world's first nutritionally-balanced pizza.

Insufficient progress has been made in most developing countries to meet the United Nations' target of halving the proportion of children who suffer from hunger by 2015 compared with 1990 levels, acc

UK consumers could face dramatically reduced food choices in the future unless much more is done to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a hard-hitting University of Manchester report warns.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Weeds, manure, slugs, cows and a vegetable oil-powered tractor are all part of a unique study being conducted in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

According to an old country song, the only two things money can't buy are true love and homegrown tomatoes. How true - those perfect, red tomatoes from the store just can't match ones plucked from the garden. Now, researchers have identified the gene that controls their ripening, according to a study published in the June 29 of Science.

In a major boost for primary health research, the ANU Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute has announced $7.5 million in funding to establish three new Centres of Research Excellence in primary health care.

David Pulsford, an alumnus of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment , and an industry leader in nitrogen fixation, will be honoured with a special award from the faculty and the opening of a new lab bearing his name.

The cooking technique in which a dish with alcohol is set alight at the table may be dramatic, but does it enhance the flavor? It doesn't seem so, according to an undergraduate research project at Cornell.

Cereal companies have improved the nutritional quality of most cereals marketed directly to children, but they also have increased advertising to children for many of their least nutritious products, according to a report by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.

Although bird species disappear with intensive agriculture, research in Costa Rica shows that forest intermingled with cultivated land rescues biodiversity. To keep up with projected demand, farming output will need to double in the next few decades. This inconvenient fact is bad news for the environment as a whole, and biodiversity in particular.

McGill University and developing-country scientists awarded CA$2.8M to fight potato blight in Colombia McGill University scientists, led by Ajjamada Kushalappa of the Faculty of Agricultural a

The poorest societies may be more able to adapt to the threat that climate change poses to food supplies than their slightly richer peers. A new study involving experts in the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham found that the very poor and the relatively wealthy countries are less vulnerable — it was the group in the middle that was most at risk.

University Park, Pa. Better marketing tactics may lead to improved safety in one of the nation's most dangerous occupations - farming, according to Penn State researchers.

When CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement was launched several years ago, one of its first tasks was to collect data on the health of New Haven's residents, including the city's children.

Thirty percent of threatened species are at risk because of consumption in the developed world according to University of Sydney research. The study mapped the world economy to trace the global trade of goods implicated in biodiversity loss such as coffee, cocoa, and lumber. "Our findings can be used to improve the regulation and product labelling of thousands of internationally traded products," said Professor Manfred Lenzen , lead author of Professor Lenzen is from the Integrated Sustainability Analysis group at the University's School of Physics.

Exhibit Information: What: Flutter: Butterflies and Moths in Science and Art When: Opens June 2, 2012 Cost: Free with Bell Museum admission MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/31/2012) —Summer is

National data show that currently more than 10 percent of preschoolers in the United States are obese, and an additional 10 percent are overweight. In a recently published article, a researcher from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , in collaboration with peers and colleagues from across the nation, says that effective strategies to target pregnancy, infancy, and toddlers are urgently needed to stop the progression of childhood obesity.

National data show that currently more than 10 percent of preschoolers in the United States are obese, and an additional 10 percent are overweight. In a recently published article, a researcher from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , in collaboration with peers and colleagues from across the nation, says that effective strategies to target pregnancy, infancy, and toddlers are urgently needed to stop the progression of childhood obesity.

AUSTIN, Texas — The nation's food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere.

It was impossible to miss the University of Sydney's participation with TEDxSydney.

Found an odd bug in your closet? Rhododendrons inexplicably wilting? Need a toenail analyzed? There's a lab for that.

The number of Americans suffering from kidney stones between 2007 and 2010 nearly doubled from 1994, according to a new study by researchers at UCLA and the RAND Corp. "While we expected the prevalence of kidney stones to increase, the size of the increase was surprising," said Charles D. Scales Jr., a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/U.S.

A number of the most widespread chronic diseases in our society increase the risk of cancer. This is shown by a study of 20 000 Swedes that mapped patients’ illnesses up to ten years before their cancer diagnosis.

Shipping food to foreign countries may not always be the best response to food crises; sometimes sending cash or procuring goods locally is cheaper, faster and more effective.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Investment in agricultural research doesn't benefit just the 2 percent of the population involved in farming.

Efforts to reduce livestock methane emissions in Australia received a major boost with the launch of a new research cluster led by the University of Melbourne and drawing on expertise from five other Australian universities, researchers in Canada and the CSIRO's Sustainable Agriculture Flagship.

Experts at Oxford University are calling for the introduction of taxes on sugary drinks as one measure that would encourage healthier diets and help tackle the obesity crisis in the UK.

Strong written school wellness policies lead to better food and more physical activity in schools, according to a study by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Once you pop the top of a tube of potato chips, it can be hard to stop munching its contents. But Cornell researchers may have found a novel way to help: Add edible serving size markers that act as subconscious stop signs. As part of an experiment carried out on two groups of college students (98 students total) while they were watching video clips in class, researchers from Cornell's Food and Brand Lab served tubes of Lays Stackables, some of which contained chips dyed red.

Population-based interventions for tackling unhealthy diet and physical inactivity could save millions of lives. An ambitious research programme is providing evidence for how best to deliver the goal. It might be that the biggest influences on the population's diet and activity won't just come from simply urging people to change.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. A Penn State researcher has been chosen to receive a grant through the Grand Challenges Explorations program, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As rice farmers around the world begin to turn from wet paddies to dry fields in an attempt to conserve water and mitigate climate change, they are facing a new foe: aluminum. Aluminum, the third most abundant element in soil, can be toxic to plants in acidic conditions. Its harmful effects are diluted in the flooding of traditional rice paddies but are becoming an issue as farmers try new ways of raising their crops.

A Penn research team, led by Mitchell Lazar, MD, PhD , director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the Perelman School of Medicine , University of Pennsylvania , reports that m