Researchers at the Stowers Institute have established a definitive link between the makeup of the microbiome, the host immune response, and an organism's ability to heal itself.

read more

28 Aug 2016: The Mediterranean diet is associated with a reduced risk of death in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease, according to results from the observational Moli-sani study presented at ESC Congress 2016 today.1

read more

Patients with cancer have heightened risks of unintentional and intentional injuries during the diagnostic process, reveal findings from a large study published by The BMJ today.

read more

Using electric fans to relieve high levels of heat and humidity may, surprisingly, have the opposite effect for seniors, a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center heart specialists suggests.

read more

University of Oregon researchers have found links between the levels of antimicrobial chemicals and antibiotic-resistance genes in the dust of an aging building used for athletics and academics.

read more

This year, the U.S. reported for the first time that a patient had been infected by bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort. The announcement followed several years of warnings that current antibiotics aren't diverse enough to fight pathogens as drug resistance spreads. The cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, sums up how researchers are trying to stay ahead of the bugs.

read more

Farber Cancer Institute investigators report they have discovered a type of immune antibody that can rapidly evolve to neutralize a wide array of influenza virus strains - including those the body hasn't yet encountered.

read more

For the first time, abnormal brain development following a Zika infection during pregnancy has been documented experimentally in the offspring of a non-human primate.

read more

Using archival documents, a new report published online by JAMA Internal Medicine examines the sugar industry's role in coronary heart disease research and suggests the industry sponsored research to influence the scientific debate to cast doubt on the hazards of sugar and to promote dietary fat as the culprit in heart disease.

read more

A recent study compares the effects of organic, ‘natural’ fertilisers, such as compost, with mineral, synthetic fertilisers, such as urea, on N2O emissions from Mediterranean soil. It suggests that there is little difference between the fertilisers, but that pig slurry offers the best overall balance in terms of emissions and crop yield.

A Dutch study has assessed the water requirements of 13 bioenergy crops across the world. The findings could help select the best crops and locations to produce bioenergy.

Reducing meat and dairy consumption would help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from farming. A recent study describes the "ecological leftovers" approach to reducing livestock-related GHGs, which assumes that a sustainable number of livestock can be calculated on the basis of available marginal land, unsuitable for other purposes, and available agricultural by-products, which could be used as feed.

A recent EU-supported study has analysed the development of volunteer or ‘rogue’ GM (genetically modified) maize plants in a conventional crop field. It finds that their numbers are low and do not exceed the EU’s threshold of 0.9 per cent for incidental GM content.

Agriculture plays a large role in the management of water in the EU. However, there is little consistent information on water use in irrigation. New EU supported research has estimated how much water is used for irrigation in European countries, providing a framework to analyse agricultural pressures on water quantity.

A number of standards and initiatives exist to minimise the negative environmental impacts of growing crops for biofuels. New research has reviewed these standards and recommended minimally acceptable criteria in the areas of biodiversity, agricultural practices, and mitigation of indirect land-use change.

Global population growth since 1850 has been largely enabled by commercial phosphorus and nitrogen fertilisers. The availability of these nutrients for food production relies upon steadily diminishing resources of natural gas and phosphorus rock. A recent study suggests that to secure a long-term affordable food supply, policy intervention is needed to conserve these essential resources.

Converting grassland to arable land can reduce the diversity of nematodes, predatory mites, earthworms and enchytraeid worms in the soil, according to a study by Dutch researchers. However, they found that restoring arable land to grassland did not fully restore the diversity of these four groups during the course of the four-year study.

Restoration of upland bog habitats by blocking drainage channels has caused concern among some sheep farmers that this will reduce the quality of grazing areas. However, UK researchers have shown that drainage does not encourage growth of plants favoured by sheep, nor do sheep use drained areas more. Therefore they conclude such restoration measures are unlikely to detrimentally affect sheep grazing.

'Feed the crop not the soil' is the message of a new review into sustainable phosphorus use. Currently, phosphorus fertiliser is applied to the soil, and plants then take it up through the roots. However, more precise nutrient management is needed on farms, the researchers say, so that the phosphorus is targeted at the crop just as it needs it.

Health experts have called for a proactive, joined-up approach to public health in Europe under a changing climate. A recent study has examined the evidence for the influence of the climate on infectious disease and proposes a new integrated network for environmental and health data.

Widespread use of antibiotics to prevent and treat infections in people and animals as well as for promoting growth in livestock is causing environmental contamination. A new study highlights the need for extra measures to reduce environmental pollution from antibiotics. Such pollution can increase the risk of diseases caused by bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics.

Scientists involved in a pan-European project to develop better methods of risk assessment say maps that show such cumulative risks geographically are easy to interpret and should be considered as practical tools for conveying risk information to decision makers and the general public.

Contrary to some established views, the local animal population is unlikely to be the major source of resistance diversity for Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 in humans in Scotland, according to a study. The researchers suggest that a broader approach to fighting antibiotic resistance is needed, which goes beyond focusing solely on curbing the use of antibiotics in domestic animal populations.

Pollen allergy is a common cause of allergic respiratory diseases such as hay fever and asthma. A recent continent-wide study suggests that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the last 30 years may be increasing pollen counts especially in European cities, which could have serious consequences for public health.

In the aftermath of natural disasters, displaced communities require temporary accommodation. A new study has examined how the built environment of these temporary communities influences their recovery and resilience, using accommodation set up after Hurricane Katrina as a case study. It highlights the importance of developing transitional built environments that consider the social and mental health needs of a community.

A recent pan-European study has reviewed the factors which influence how annoyed a person feels about road traffic and aircraft noise. Among its findings, residents in terraced housing or apartments were less annoyed by road traffic noise than residents in semi-detached or detached housing.

Increasing noise levels are a global environmental concern, and have been linked to important health issues, such as heart disease and cognitive development. New Danish research has now shown that it is also associated with an increased risk of diabetes.

People exposed to fine particle (PM2.5) and ozone pollution are at increased risk of suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, according to a recent Finnish study. Cardiac arrest is more likely within 24 hours after exposure to PM2.5 and up to several days after exposure to ozone.

For people in the UK to eat the recommended 280 grams of fish per week, the country would have to rely on aquaculture and increasingly on imports of both wild and farmed fish from poorer countries, a recent study has revealed. This can have social and environmental implications and the researchers urge governments, particularly in developed countries, to consider nutritional advice in a global context, to minimise the impact of fish exports from poorer countries.

The application to crops of struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) recovered from waste water may cause antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) present in this fertiliser to enter the food chain. Chinese researchers who conducted this study on Brassica plants suggest that ARGs in struvite pass from the soil into the roots of the plant, and from the roots to the leaves, via the bacterial community already present. The results of this research highlight the need for struvite production methods and agricultural practices that minimise the risk of antibiotic-resistance transmission from struvite to humans or animals via the environment.

Noise pollution is among the most common complaints regarding environmental issues in Europe, especially in densely populated and residential areas near major roads, railways and airports. But noise - unwanted sound - is more than a mere annoyance, even at levels below ear damaging volumes. The EU's Environmental Noise Directive (END) has initiated action plans in Member States to reduce environmental noise exposure and its effects. This Thematic Issue reports on recent research to help guide effective noise action plans throughout Europe.

Exposure to excessive noise is recognised as a major environmental health concern. This Thematic Issue examines the impact of noise on human health and outlines how policy initiatives may limit health effects from noise annoyance - and improve wellbeing.

Managing landscapes effectively requires the involvement of a wide variety of stakeholders. The views and interests of these different groups can be effectively integrated by agri-environment 'collaboratives' — a type of bridging organisation which can be found in varying forms in Europe. Using data from Germany and the Netherlands, a study concludes that these groups make important contributions to landscape management, ranging from implementing policy to generating income.

In a new study, Spanish researchers describe a method specifically designed for measuring and characterising noise from building sites. They claim the method could help shape future policy related to noise pollution caused by the construction industry and provide important information to help reduce construction noise.

New research has identified 25 variables that influence noise in urban areas. By combining these into an equation, the study produced an accurate tool to describe urban sound environments that could be useful in urban planning.

New research has analysed some of the issues around the implementation of the EU's Environmental Noise Directive (END) by Member States. It demonstrated large differences in the way noise levels are calculated and geographically mapped between countries and called for more standardised and clearer guidelines.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set the European target limit of outdoor night noise levels at annual average of 40 decibels (dB) in its new guidelines. This would protect the public, including the most vulnerable, such as children and the elderly.

New research has reviewed the Irish implementation of the first phase of the EU Noise Directive. So far 31 different organisations have been involved and this will increase throughout the second phase of the Directive's implementation. More standardisation is needed to harmonise activities, perhaps by establishing a national expert steering group.

A new World Health Organisation (WHO) study has estimated that the health impact of environmental noise in western Europe could be up to 1.6 million healthy life years lost annually through ill health, disability or early death.

A recent study suggests that exposure to aircraft noise during the day has a greater impact on cognitive ability in children than sleep-disruption caused by exposure to aircraft noise during the night. Protective policy is therefore likely to be most effective if focused at the school level.

Nearly 85% of residents in central Dublin, Ireland, could be exposed to damaging levels of night-time traffic noise, according to a recent study. The researchers explain how they assessed population exposure to noise and calculate the impacts of several noise reduction measures, providing information that could help EU Member States meet the Environmental Noise Directive’s requirements.

Surveys have suggested that the public have become more annoyed by aircraft noise over recent decades. A recent study has investigated whether these results are partly caused by changes in survey methods and participants. However, no methodological issues considered could satisfactorily explain the rise in reported levels of annoyance at a given noise exposure level.

New research in Spain has explored solutions to reducing traffic noise, and suggests that the best option is to combine global measures, such as speed restrictions, and local measures, such as noise screens.