• Volatility of food prices is still a mystery

    Riots, political instability, and a spike in malnourishment cases blighted the years 2007 and 2008, particularly in developing countries. The cause was a sudden surge in global food prices, with rice eventually rising several hundred per cent as importing countries simply could not get enough of this basic foodstuff.Food market volatility has yet to be understood, and there is no definite proof that it is due to speculators.

  • Office implementing Obamacare avoids furloughs

    Gary Cohen, the director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said Wednesday that his office will not be furloughing its workers due to the federal budget cuts known as the sequester. His office is in charge of implementing most of President Obama’s healthcare law.

  • Preventing bugs from becoming antibiotic-resistant

    About 440 000 new cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis emerge annually, causing around 150 000 deaths. New research finds that bacteria can evolve resistance more quickly when stronger antibiotics are used. The rate of evolution of antibiotic resistance speeds up when potent treatments are given because resistant bacterial cells flourish most during the most aggressive therapies.

  • Fighting superbugs with a new genre of antibodies

    In an advance toward coping with bacteria that shrug off existing antibiotics and sterilization methods, scientists are reporting development of a new family of selective antimicrobial agents that do not rely on traditional antibiotics.

  • U.S. hospitals shipping sick immigrants back to their home countries

    Hundreds of immigrants who are in the United States illegally end up in the hospital only to find out they will be sent home through a removal system run by hospitals trying to avoid the high cost of treating illegal immigrants.

  • New detection test to improve food safety, bioterrorism defense

    Sales of chicken products in China plummeted recently during an outbreak of a deadly new strain of bird flu. From bird flu to mad cow disease, numerous food scares have made global headlines in recent years.Scientists develop new detection technique which wouldmake food contamination testing more rapid and accurate. The detection test could also accelerate warnings after bioterrorism attacks.

  • Interior Dept. releases progress report on U.S. Water Census

    The U.S. Interior Department issued released a report to Congress on the progress of the National Water Census. As competition for water grows — for irrigation of crops, for use by cities and communities, for energy production, and for the environment — the need for the National Water Census and related information and tools to aid water resource managers also grows. The Water Census will assist water and resource managers in understanding and quantifying water supply and demand, and will support more sustainable management of water resources.

  • Mississippi man arrested for sending ricin letters to Obama, Sen. Wicker

    The FBI confirmed yesterday (Wednesday) that a letter addressed to President Obama was found to contain the toxin ricin. As is the case with all the mail sent to the White House, the letter was screened in a remote mail sorting facility in Anacostia, a neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C., and intercepted. The FBI arrested a man from Tupelo, Mississippi, on suspicion that he was behind the ricin letters to the White House and to Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), who lives in Tupelo.

  • Experts will meet in September for the bi-annual anthrax research conference

    More than 300 scientists and researchers from all over the world who work on Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, and B. cereus and B. thuringiensis, two closely related bacilli, will be heading to Victoria, British Columbia for the Bacillus ACT 2013 conference, which will be held 1-5 September.

  • Deadly wheat disease threats global food supplies

    Disease-resistant wheat developed over the past half century helped ensure steady world food supplies, but a global research team warns that without increased financial support for disease resistance research, new strains of a deadly fungal disease could leave millions without affordable access to food.

  • Invasive kudzu bugs pose greater threat than previously thought

    The invasive kudzu bug has the potential to be a major agricultural pest, causing significant damage to economically important soybean crops. Conventional wisdom has held that the insect pests will be limited to areas in the southern United States, but new research shows that they may be able to expand into other parts of the country.

  • New bird flu strain adapting to mammals, humans

    Influenza virus depends on its ability to attach to and commandeer the living cells of its host to replicate and spread efficiently. Avian influenza rarely infects humans, but can sometimes adapt to people, posing a significant risk to human health. A genetic analysis of the avian flu virus responsible for at least nine human deaths in China portrays a virus evolving to adapt to human cells, raising concern about its potential to spark a new global flu pandemic.

  • Population growth a challenge to secure supplies of energy, food, water

    Mention great challenges in feeding a soaring world population, and thoughts turn to providing a bare subsistence diet for poverty-stricken people in developing countries. An expert says, however, that there is a parallel and often-overlooked challenge: the global population will rise from seven billion today to almost nine billion people by 2040. Providing enough food to prevent starvation and famine certainly will be a daunting problem.

  • Bird flu mutation study offers vaccine clue

    Scientists have described small genetic changes that enable the H5N1 bird flu virus to replicate more easily in the noses of mammals. So far there have only been isolated cases of bird flu in humans, and no widespread transmission as the H5N1 virus cannot replicate efficiently in the nose.

  • Footwear safety reflectors help in detecting bioterror threats

    Tiny versions of the reflectors on sneakers and bicycle fenders that help ensure the safety of runners and bikers at night are moving toward another role in detecting bioterrorism threats and diagnosing everyday infectious diseases, scientists said the other day.