News by Subject Agriculture

Getting up close -- and a little dirty -- with farm animals just might help us fend off illness, say researchers who've further demonstrated the benefits of early exposure to a wide variety of environmental bacteria.

Fussy fish seeking refuge from climate change on deeper reefs can still keep their specialised diets. The corals they prey upon change their own diets to survive the different environment at depth. This ensures their fussy predators are still well-fed!

New research led by University of California, Berkeley, scientists provides a roadmap for how entrepreneurs can harness freshwater prawns' voracious appetite for snails to reduce the transmission of schistosomiasis-causing parasites while still making a profit selling the tasty animals as food. The study shows how small-scale farming of freshwater prawns could be a win-win for communities in emerging and developing economies where schistosomiasis is common.

The first global examination of the affordability of both healthy and unhealthy foods finds high prices for nutritious foods correlate with higher undernutrition, while low prices for unhealthy foods correlate to higher obesity, underlining need for policies to shift prices toward healthier diets.

People who follow the paleo diet have twice the amount of a key blood biomarker linked closely to heart disease, the world's first major study examining the impact of the diet on gut bacteria has found.