Health & Science

• Saturday, November 14th 2015 - 12:02 UTC

  World Diabetes Day, 14 November; 350 million people suffer the chronic disease

  

  The World Health Organization is marking World Diabetes Day on 14th November calling for greater action to turn the growing tide of the global diabetes epidemic and has announced that World Health Day, on 7 April will focus on the issue of diabetes.

• Friday, November 6th 2015 - 08:40 UTC

  Monsanto GM seeds blocked from two Mexican states; consultation with local communities mandatory

  

  Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, has been blocked from planting genetically modified soy seeds in the southern Mexican states of Campeche and Yucatan after the country's Supreme Court granted an injunction against the country’s agriculture ministry, teleSur reported.

• Friday, October 30th 2015 - 08:03 UTC

  WHO clarification: moderate consumption of meat, particularly preserved meat

  

  The World Health Organization, WHO, has received a number of queries, expressions of concern and requests for clarification following the publication of a report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) relating to processed meat and colorectal cancer.

• Thursday, October 29th 2015 - 14:50 UTC

  Tuberculosis mortality nearly halved since 1990

  

  The fight against tuberculosis is paying off, with this year’s death rate nearly half of what it was in 1990. Nevertheless, 1.5 million people died from TB in 2014. Most of these deaths could have been prevented, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2015, which was released on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

• Tuesday, October 27th 2015 - 09:39 UTC

  Processed meats can cause colorectal cancer in humans, says WHO

  

  Eating processed meats like hot dogs, sausages and bacon can cause colorectal cancer in humans, and red meat is also a likely cause of the disease, World Health Organization (WHO) experts said.

• Monday, October 19th 2015 - 21:46 UTC

  Polar operators keen on conducting citizen science projects

  

  Field staff from the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operations (IAATO) and the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) got together in Toronto last month in the first Polar field staff conference ever held. Seventy-five people attended over the three days representing 24 IAATO/AECO members, three governments, three universities and the World Wildlife Fund.

• Wednesday, October 14th 2015 - 21:08 UTC

  Billions of juvenile polar cod under the Arctic ice, confirmed by German marine biologists

  

  Using a new net, marine biologists from Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, been able to catch polar cod directly beneath the Arctic sea ice with a trawl, allowing them to determine their large-scale distribution and origin. This information is of fundamental importance, as polar cod are a major source of food for seals, whales and seabirds in the Arctic.

• Friday, October 9th 2015 - 08:04 UTC

  Scientists flock to Falklands for vital South Georgia future research strategy

  

  Fifteen scientists from institutes around the world gathered in the Falkland Islands this week to assess future scientific requirements for South Georgia. Project manager Dr Vicky Peck from the British Antarctic Survey based in Cambridge explained that the South Georgia Future Science project wanted to identify what the scientific needs of the island were and how they could best be facilitated.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2015 - 14:27 UTC

  Neutrinos oscillation discovery gives a Japanese and a Canadian the Physics Nobel prize

  

  A Japanese and a Canadian scientist won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday for discovering that elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos have mass, opening a new window onto the fundamental nature of the universe.

• Tuesday, October 6th 2015 - 09:04 UTC

  Nobel in medicine for creating natural drugs to combat parasites; China's first prize

  

  Nobel prize in medicine went Monday to three scientists hailed as “heroes in the truest sense of the word” for saving millions of lives with the creation of the world's leading malaria-fighting drug and another that has nearly wiped out two devastating tropical diseases.