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Broadcasters failed to prepare audiences for events in North Africa and the Middle East, according to new research from the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT) and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Published today (Weds June 22), the Outside the Box report looks in detail at the nature of non-news factual coverage on all the main television channels in 2010 and finds that some countries like Libya and Yemen received little or no coverage at all.

Researchers in Australia have discovered that mothers who smoke during pregnancy are causing developmental changes to their unborn babies that lead to them having lower levels of the type of cholesterol that is known to protect against heart disease in later life – high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Steven Riley, from Imperial College London, and colleagues analyze a community cohort study from the 2009 (H1N1) influenza pandemic in Hong Kong, finding that more children than adults were infected with H1N1, but children were less likely to progress to severe disease than adults. The authors recommend that revised pandemic preparedness plans should include prospective serological cohort studies, such as this one, in order to be able to estimate rates of severe disease per infection.

In the final article in a six-part PLoS Medicine series on migration & health, Anita Davies and colleagues from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) discuss the specific health risks and policy needs associated with return migration. As global migration increases generally, so too does return to home countries, where the health of returnees is impacted by the cumulative exposure to social determinants and risk factors of health during the migration process, during the return movement, and following return.

The world's oceans support vast populations of single-celled organisms (phytoplankton) that are responsible, through photosynthesis, for removing about half of the carbon dioxide that is produced by burning fossil fuels – as much as the rainforests and all other terrestrial systems combined. One group of phytoplankton, known as the coccolithophores, are known for their remarkable ability to build chalk (calcium carbonate) scales inside their cells, which are secreted to form a protective armour on the cell surface.

(Edmonton) A University of Alberta researcher has co-written an extensive study of the caribou population in the Fort McMurray oilsands region that show the animals' survival isn't as threatened as was perceived in the past. The study recommends efforts to manage human activity around resource development before resorting to the drastic measure of a wolf kill.

An analysis of data from previously published studies indicates that intensive-dose statin therapy is associated with an increased risk of new-onset diabetes compared with moderate-dose therapy, according to a study in the June 22/29 issue of JAMA.

Men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer and who are also smokers have an associated increased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and prostate cancer-specific death, according to a study in the June 22/29 issue of JAMA. These patients also had an increased likelihood of prostate cancer recurrence.

Over the past 2 decades the prevalence of diabetic kidney disease in the U.S. increased in direct proportion to the prevalence of diabetes itself, according to a study in the June 22/29 issue of JAMA.

Boston, MA – A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and University of California, San Francisco, researchers suggests that men with prostate cancer who smoke increase their risk of prostate cancer recurrence and of dying from the disease. A link also was found between smoking at the time of prostate cancer diagnosis and aggressive prostate cancer, overall mortality (death) and cardiovascular disease mortality.

Diabetic kidney disease has become more prevalent in the United States over the past 20 years, despite a substantial increase in the use of medications for the treatment of people with diabetes, according to a study to be published June 22 in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

These medications include drugs that lower glucose, blood pressure and lipids.

The independent assessment, written by WCS Senior Conservation Scientist Dr. John Weaver, is a compilation and synthesis of the latest information on these species – and how climate change may affect them – from 30 biologists in the region and from nearly 300 scientific papers. In addition, Weaver spent four months hiking and riding horseback through these remote roadless areas to evaluate their importance for conservation.

Bethesda, MD -- If you think yeast is most useful for beer and pizza crust, here's something else to chew on: a team of U.S. researchers has identified and compared the genetic codes for all known species of yeasts closely related to bakers' and brewers' yeast.

An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to reveal for the first time how reduced levels of a specific protein may play a central role in causing at least one inherited form of the disease.

INDIANA DUNES NATIONAL LAKESHORE, Ind. —Native bees – often small, stingless, solitary and unnoticed in the flashier world of stinging honeybees – are quite discriminating about where they live, according to U.S. Geological Survey research.