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More than one-third of mothers and about one-fifth of fathers in the United Kingdom appear to experience an episode of depression between their child's birth and 12th year of age, with the highest rates in the first year after birth, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the November print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Not drying your hands thoroughly after washing them, could increase the spread of bacteria and rubbing your hands whilst using a conventional electric hand dryer could be a contributing factor. Frequently people give up drying their hands and wipe them on their clothes instead, but hand-hygiene is a key part of infection control and drying hands after washing is a very important part of the process.

Patients who have received a new kidney are significantly more likely to develop transplant renal artery stenosis (TRAS) if they are obese or over 50, according to research published in the September issue of the Journal of Renal Care.

Researchers from Iran studied 360 recipients who had received kidneys from unrelated donors to discover what factors increased the risk of TRAS, where the renal arteries narrow, impeding blood flow to the kidney.

BOSTON, MA (September 7, 2010) – Progeria, also known as Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), is a rare, fatal genetic disease characterized by an appearance of accelerated aging in children. All children with Progeria die of the same heart disease that affects millions of normal aging adults (atherosclerosis), but instead of occurring at 60 or 70 years of age, these children may suffer heart attacks and strokes even before age 10, and the average age of death is 13 years.

The first entire genome of an Irish individual has been sequenced. The sequence is reported in BioMed Central's open access journal, Genome Biology and provides insight into the evolutionary history of this distinct lineage.

Death of the 'doughnut'

Something has been eating Charlie Kerfoot's doughnut, and all fingers point to a European mollusk about the size of a fat lima bean.

Children and teens with higher blood levels of chemicals used in the production of non-stick cookware and waterproof fabrics appear more likely to have elevated total and LDL cholesterol levels, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Financial incentives in primary care cut heart disease deaths and hospital admissions, particularly among people from deprived areas, finds research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Current evidence suggests that linking financial incentives to quality improvement has improved the overall quality of primary care in the UK, but so far there has been little evidence to suggest that better quality primary care actually improves health.

At least one in 10 athletes sustained an injury and a further one in 14 fell ill during the 2010 Winter Olympics, held in Canada, reveals research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Relatively little is known about the injury rate during winter Olympics, say the authors, especially as many of the competitive events, such as snowboarding and freestyle skiing, are fairly recent additions.

A BMJ investigation into the top-selling diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia) raises concerns about its safety and the whole system by which drugs are evaluated, regulated, and promoted around the world.

BMJ Editor in Chief, Dr Fiona Godlee, believes that the drug should not have been licensed and should now be withdrawn. She also calls for more robust regulatory processes and better access to the raw data used to license drugs to allow scrutiny by the scientific community.

There may be better ways to engineer the planet's climate to prevent dangerous global warming than mimicking volcanoes, a University of Calgary climate scientist says in two new studies.

"Releasing engineered nano-sized disks, or sulphuric acid in a condensable vapour above the Earth, are two novel approaches. These approaches offer advantages over simply putting sulphur dioxide gas into the atmosphere," says David Keith, a director in the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy and a Schulich School of Engineering professor.

Even though organic methods may increase farm biodiversity, a combination of conventional farming and protected areas could sometimes be a better way to maintain food production and protect wildlife.