News by Subject Biology

Offering children a wide variety and large quantities of snack food encourages them to eat more - and may contribute to weight problems, a new study has found. The research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and published in the latest International Journal of Obesity, also found that how snacks are presented (in a large or small container) has little influence on how much children snack.

The most comprehensive synthesis of climate change impacts on the global availability of nutrients to date finds that, over the next 30 years, climate change and higher CO2 could significantly reduce the availability of critical nutrients, representing another challenge to global development and the fight to end undernutrition.

A relaxation of UK industry regulation of salt content in food has been linked with 9,900 additional cases of cardiovascular disease, and 1,500 cases of stomach cancer.

Mars is about nine months from Earth with today's tech, NASA reckons. As the new space race hurtles forward, Harvard researchers are asking: how do we make sure the winners can still stand when they reach the finish line? Published in Frontiers in Physiology, their study shows that resveratrol substantially preserves muscle mass and strength in rats exposed to the wasting effects of simulated Mars gravity.

University of Guelph researchers have become the first to access data on more than 19 million cats and have learned that most cats continue to put on weight as they age.

A regional laboratory found residues of carbofuran when analyzing frozen 'red chili without stalks' for plant protection products. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) thereupon asked the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) to make a health assessment for the sample. The result was that a risk to the health of consumers is unlikely according to the latest available scientific knowledge.

Phosphates are essential substances that occur naturally in the human body and make up a considerable portion of our nutrition. They occur in almost all foods, especially those high in protein, such as cheese, cold cuts and meat. A certain group of phosphates is authorised as food additives in the European Union.