Quality in Biological News

Improved air quality during Beijing Olympics could inform pollution-curbing policies

The air in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics was cleaner than the previous year's, due to aggressive efforts by the Chinese government to curtail traffic, increase emissions standards and halt construction in preparation for the games, according to a Cornell study. Led by Max Zhang, assistant pr...

Dietary supplements manufacturers gain new tool to help ensure quality products

Rockville, Md., July 7, 2009 A first-of-its kind collection of standards designed to assist dietary supplements manufacturers in providing quality products to consumers is being released today by the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention. The USP Dietary Supplements Compendium (DSC) will also help ...

Enhanced quality of 'LIFE' through Nordic food

The world's largest research project into children's health and well-being will help solve global problems such as obesity, obesity-related diseases and learning difficulties. The research project, which is headed by Professor Arne Astrup, is based at LIFE - Faculty of Life Sciences at University ...

Houseplants increase quality of life for retirement community residents

LAS VEGAS, NVAs the U.S. population ages, the number of citizens moving from their own homes to assisted living or long-term-care facilities is increasing dramatically. These numbers are expected to continue rising. By 2030, the population aged 65 years and older is expected to double to more than...

Healthy food availability could depend on where you live -- so does the quality of your diet

The availability of healthy food choices and your quality of diet is associated with where you live, according to two studies conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined healthy food availability and diet quality among Baltimore City and Ba...

CU-Boulder study suggests air quality regulations miss key pollutants

A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that air quality regulations may not effectively target a large source of fine, organic particle pollutants that contribute to hazy skies and poor air quality over the Los Angeles region. According to the study, a much smaller per...

Air quality forecasts for China

With less than a month remaining before the Beijing Olympics, Chinese officials have introduced a series of measures to improve air quality for the Games. A new tool has been installed in the capital city to allow the Chinese to monitor the effectiveness of these efforts. Poor air quality could...

URI researcher: China can't fully fix air quality problem for Olympics

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. July 14, 2008 The outlook for air quality in Beijing during the Olympics is borderline, and there's little that the Chinese government can do to improve it. That's the conclusion drawn by a University of Rhode Island atmospheric chemist who analyzed pollution data collected...

Dosage of fertilizer helps to enhance quality of wheat

This release is available in Spanish . Breaking up the dosage of fertilizer into three phases of application enhances the quality of wheat and limits its negative effects on the environment. This is the conclusion of the PhD thesis of University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) researc...

Development of new techniques to understand marble quality and durability

The international commerce of ornamental stones has grown all over the world in the last years, revealing a decided solid support to the aesthetics of natural stones in buildings construction and urban ornamentation. Marble is, undoubtedly, the ornamental stone par excellence. All through hist...

UC Riverside to host conference on stricter air quality standards for Southern California

RIVERSIDE, Calif. How Southern California tackles the daunting task of meeting stricter federal and state emissions standards and reducing greenhouse gases is the focus of an all-day conference hosted by UC Riversides Edward J. Blakely Center for Sustainable Suburban Development and the Souther...

Air quality forecasts see future in space

Weather broadcasts have long been a staple for people planning their day. Now with the help of NASA satellites, researchers are working to broaden daily forecasts to include predictions of air quality, a feat that is becoming reality in some parts of the world. Some scientists predict that an o...

Stronger EPA leadership needed to improve water quality in Mississippi River

WASHINGTON The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take a more aggressive leadership role in implementing the Clean Water Act if water quality in the Mississippi River and the northern Gulf of Mexico is to improve, says a new report from the National Research Council. EPA has failed to use ...

New research seeks to enhance quality and security of wireless telemedicine

A team of researchers led by Fei Hu, assistant professor of computer engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, is working to advance the integration of radio frequency identification technology, also known as RFID, into cardiac sensor networks, a new wireless technology for telemedicine de...

Springer book wins Quality of Communication Award

The Springer book Regulating Agricultural Biotechnology: Economics and Policy, edited by Richard E. Just, Julian M. Alston, and David Zilberman, has won the Quality of Communication Award from the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). The Award recognizes publications that demonstra...

Skin oil -- ozone interactions worsen air quality in airplanes

Airline passengers and crews who gripe about poor cabin air quality could have a new culprit to blame: the oils on their skin, hair and clothing. A study in the current issue of ACS Environmental Science & Technology suggests interactions between body oils and ozone found in airplane cabins could ...

New standard for popular stevia-based sweetener to assure product's quality

Rockville, Md., January 5, 2009 Responding to the growing popularity of a plant-based sweetener, the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention today announced it is developing a new standard to be included in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC) that will help food and beverage manufacturers assure the produ...

Diabetes linked to male infertility; excess sugars in the body have direct effect on sperm quality

This release is available in Spanish . Barcelona, Spain: Diabetes in men has a direct effect on fertility, a scientist told the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday 9 July). Dr. Con Mallidis from Queen's University, Belfast, U...

Arable land can have a negative impact on air quality

This release is available in German . Leipzig. Fallow agricultural land and steppe-formation processes are evidently capable of having a much greater effect on global air quality than was previously assumed. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers after examining a dust cloud that form...

Herbicide-tolerant crops can improve water quality

The residual herbicides commonly used in the production of corn and soybean are frequently detected in rivers, streams, and reservoirs at concentrations that exceed drinking water standards in areas where these crops are extensively grown. When these bodies of water are used as sources of drinking...

Fuzzy logic water quality

A fuzzy logic approach to analyzing water quality could help reduce the number of people in the developing world forced to drink polluted and diseased water for survival. Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, an Inderscience publica...

Fueling ethanol production while protecting water quality

Grain-based ethanol production has increased dramatically in recent years as the cost and instability of oil has increased. New U.S. government policies require major increases in ethanol production. While future plans call for a viable cellulosic ethanol industry, expanded grain ethanol productio...

New bacteria test could improve quality of fruit and vegetable juice

Increasingly, consumer products, especially food and beverage products, are being scrutinized for better quality. At the University of Missouri-Columbia, a food science expert has developed a rapid, reliable and efficient technique to ensure fruit and vegetable juice products adhere to federal and ...

Computer with brain connections changing quality of life of paralyzed

Fundamental theories regarding consciousness, emotion and quality of life in sufferers of paralysis from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as 'Lou Gerhig's disease') are being challenged based on new research on brain-computer interaction. ALS is a progressive disease that destroys neu...

Very low birth weight linked to reduced quality of life in pre-school children

Babies with very low birth weights tend to have a much lower quality of life when they are three or four years old, according to a study published in the latest issue of the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing. Researchers assessed 118 children who had birth weights of 1500g or less and compare...

NASA study: Alaskan fires affected Houston air quality in 2004

An innovative new NASA-funded study based on a combination of satellite data, computer models and weather balloon readings finds that smoke from Alaskan and Canadian forest fires as much as doubled ground-level ozone thousands of miles away in Houston during a two-day period in July 2004. The study...

Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food

The effects of overfishing may have driven marbled murrelets, an endangered seabird found along the Pacific coast, to increasingly rely upon less nutritious food sources, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The results, to be published online by early...

Yale scientists identify structure for RNA quality control

A report by Yale scientists in the journal Cell sheds new light on how the protein Ro, a major autoantigen in patients with autoimmune disease, recognizes misfolded RNAs, creating a RNA quality control system for cells. The quality control process in the cell has been well-studied for the DNA and...

Carnegie Mellon's Jean VanBriesen leads research team on Monongahela River

... Pittsburgh-based Colcom Foundation to study water quality in the Monongahela River. The focus will be ...ering and faculty director of the Center for Water quality in Urban Environmental Systems (WaterQUEST). ... "Carnegie Mellon's work to understand the water quality impacts from shale gas production in Pennsylvania ...

Neuropathic pain: The sea provides a new hope of relief

...brushing the skin can produce intense pain, severely affecting the person's quality of life. The treatments that give some relief to some patients are a ver...rsed hyperalgesic behaviour in the experimental rats. "To provide better quality of life, we need new drugs that can act rapidly and have specific functions...

K-State researchers say after-school programs should promote activity, healthy nutrition

...ity, and other K-State researchers have found that quality after-school programs are an important contributor...h was designed to prevent obesity by enhancing the quality of after-school programming. The study found that some existing after-school programs lack in quality and do not provide adequate nutrition or physical ...

Aware, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2009 Financial Results

...s products businesses requires telephone companies to install DSL service in volume; our test and diagnostic hardware and software products could have quality problems; we depend on a single source contract manufacturer for the manufacture of our DSL hardware products; and we are dependent on single source s...

ADA releases position paper on food and water safety

... by registered dietitians Julie A. Albrecht, professor of nutrition and health sciences at the University of Nebraska; and Debe Nagy-Nero, director of quality assurance, nutrition and safety at The Holland Inc., Vancouver, Wash. The paper reviews numerous aspects of food and water safety including: Th...

Scientists uncork a potential secret of red wine's health benefits

...lasgow Biomedical Research Centre in Scotland and one of the researchers involved in the work. "Moreover, many survivors of sepsis develop a very low quality of life due to the damage that inflammation causes to several internal organs. The ultimate goal of our study was to identify a potential novel thera...

E-Noses: Testing their mettle against fly noses

...-superior nose of the common house fly. "Although e-noses already have many uses such as detecting spoilage in the food industry and monitoring air quality they are not as discriminating as biological noses," according to CSIRO scientist, Dr Stephen Trowell. "Our efforts to improve e-noses recently rec...

Organic food not nutritionally better than conventionally-produced food

...d up to 29 February 2008 and compared the nutrient content of organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. To ensure methodological rigour the quality of each article was assessed. To be graded as satisfactory quality, the studies had to provide information on the organic certification scheme from w...

Nottinghamshire Police First Law Enforcement Agency to Deploy ForensicSoft in United Kingdom

...oduct. "Like most Law Enforcement Digital Forensics Units, we are constantly looking for ways to streamline our procedures without sacrificing quality of work. SAFE has allowed us to do exactly that, and provides our unit with a great deal of flexibility by offering an easy-to-use and forensically so...

Fujitsu Expands Support for Ethernet Networks With New Additions to XG Switch Product Line

... have a brand offering they can trust with their network. "Many of our customers, who have come to appreciate the performance and outstanding quality of the Fujitsu 10GbE Switch products, have also inquired about utilizing similar Fujitsu solutions in their 1Gb networks," said Jim Preasmyer, directo...

University of Toronto helps to 'barcode' the world's plants

...A regions to use. "We compared the performance of the seven leading candidate gene regions against three criteria: ease of obtaining DNA sequences; quality of the DNA sequences; and ability to tell species apart based on a sample of 550 species of land plants", says Barrett. "Based on this global analysis...

Wildfires set to increase 50 percent by 2050

... will lead to significant deterioration of the air quality in the western United States due to greater presen...will have important consequences on western US air quality and visibility. "The US government has introduced legislation to try to improve air quality and visibility by 2064. Currently the main focus ...