Culture

Kansas City, MO – May 4, 2010 – A new study has found for the first time that as Americans are gaining more body fat, so are their babies. The research, which reviewed data from more than 74,000 births, found that a key measure of body fat composition in newborns increased significantly over a 15-year period, mirroring similar increases among pregnant mothers. The findings were presented Sunday by researchers from Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting.

New York City and terrorism are in the news again due to the arrest of Pakistani Faisal Shahzad, living in Shelton, Connecticut, who was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport after tryingto flee to Dubai.

Why do terrorists seem to hate New York? In America, it is the most likely city to be sympathetic to Muslim states that promote terrorism, so it would seem counterintuitive to bomb it.

Research carried out by the University of Warwick in collaboration with the Federico II University Medical School in Naples, Italy, has found that people who sleep for less than six hours each night were 12% more likely to die prematurely than those who get the recommended 6-8 hours.

The study, published today in the journal Sleep, provides unequivocal evidence of the direct link between short duration of sleep (less than 6 hours sleep a night) and an increased chance of dying prematurely.

It appears that people are listening to doctors' orders to protect their skin from the sun. In the largest Canadian study of non-melanoma skin cancer, Andrei Metelitsa, Gordon Jung and their research group have found skin cancer rates in Alberta are going down in men and have levelled off for women. This comes at a time when American scientists say that skin cancer rates are on the rise.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Astronauts could one day tend their own crops on long space missions, and Purdue University researchers have found a healthy candidate to help satisfy a sweet tooth - a strawberry that requires little maintenance and energy.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A compound derived from broccoli could help prevent or treat breast cancer by targeting cancer stem cells -- the small number of cells that fuel a tumor's growth -- according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The study tested sulforaphane, a component of broccoli and broccoli sprouts, in both mice and cell cultures. Researchers found sulforaphane targeted and killed the cancer stem cells and prevented new tumors from growing.

Charles Darwin's worries about possible adverse effects of inbreeding in his family seem to have been justified, according to a study described in the May 2010 issue of BioScience. Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and his mother, Susannah Wedgwood, was the daughter of third cousins. The study, which extended to 25 families including 176 children, found a statistical association between child mortality and the inbreeding coefficient of individuals in the Darwin/Wedgwood dynasty.