Pets and Vets: Feline breast cancer study hopes to find better treatments for animals and humans.

Pets and Vets: Feline breast cancer study hopes to find better treatments for animals and humans.Patients receive two vaccines, one before surgery and one after.Researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) and McMaster University’s Immunology Research Centre have joined together to treat breast cancer in cats using new vaccines designed to boost the immune system and kill tumor cells without harming healthy tissue, according to a University of Guelph release. The trial may lead to better treatment of breast cancer in animals and people. Breast cancer occurs naturally in cats and is similar in many ways to the disease in humans. Trials may answer important questions about the disease that studies involving artificially induced cancer in laboratory animals cannot. Cats participating in the study receive two vaccines, one prior to surgery and the other after. Each vaccine contains a virus modified to carry three genes associated with breast cancer. The first injection is a nonreplicating adenovirus intended to trigger an anti-tumor response, according to the release. The second is an intravenous infusion about a month after surgery. It delivers an oncolytic Maraba virus that replicates only in tumor cells, targeting and killing them. Pets and Vets: Feline breast cancer study hopes to find better treatments for animals and humans.

Managing breast cancer as a veterinary professional.

One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Dr. Karen Bradley shares her own experience with cancer, including how it's changed her life and how she practices medicine. Here, Dr. Karen Bradley tackles some of the toughest questions about managing breast cancer as a veterinary professional, including how to maintain a level of privacy about your health in a public-facing profession. She also explains how her own diagnosis encouraged one of her team members to get a mammogram—and helped her technician catch her own cancer earlier, giving her a better path for treatment.

Echbee Foods : How a working mum turned her problem to a business. #entrepreneur.

Echbee Foods : How a working mum turned her problem to a business.
 
   Life they say is a teacher,others say its what you make of it and many more believe it full of opportunities. I personally believe all these sayings but the last best describes my story.

 I am in the working class popularly called the working mum's club with my office on the island and home on the mainland i had to look for ways to simplify my life and also raise my kids properly.

              

 My days starts very early, prepare my kids for school,make lunch,pack it and drop kids off then head-off to the island where my practice is domiciled.

 The running of the home was not easy, i had to think fast because i was stretched on all sides, take a look; My office duties/deadlines, meetings ,surgery,consulting e.t.c.,then mum duties,again lesson duties and my own personal development courses .

Each day was stressful and cooking like everything had to be scheduled,i had to make time to shop in bulk and stock up my freezer,so i can cook at 2.00 am while i am doing other chores.

 This not only made my life easy,but also exposed me to the world of packs,sachets,paste and powders.

Human-induced deforestation is causing an increase in malaria cases.

Human-induced deforestation is causing an increase in malaria cases.A new study of 67 less-developed, malaria-endemic nations finds a link between deforestation and increasing malaria rates across developing nations. Nearly 130 million hectares of forest -- an area almost equivalent in size to South Africa -- have been lost since 1990, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. A new study of 67 less-developed, malaria-endemic nations titled, "Anthropogenic forest loss and malaria prevalence: a comparative examination of the causes and disease consequences of deforestation in developing nations," published in AIMS Environmental Science, led by Lehigh University sociologist Dr. Kelly Austin, finds a link between deforestation and increasing malaria rates across developing nations. Malaria represents an infectious disease tied to environmental conditions, as mosquitoes represent the disease vector. Deforestation, Austin notes, is not a natural phenomenon, but rather results predominantly from human activities, or anthropogenically.

Chocolate production linked to increased deforestation in poor nations.

Chocolate production linked to increased deforestation in poor nations.Newly published research focuses on the link between cocoa exports and deforestation in developing nations. Every year, more than five million family farms in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Indonesia and Brazil produce about four and a half million tons of cocoa beans, according the World Cocoa Foundation. Ghana and the Ivory Coast supply more than 70 percent of the world's cocoa. Cocoa, much like coffee, is an export product consumed almost entirely in developed nations such as the United States. Yet the beans, which are used to make chocolate, are almost exclusively grown in less-developed nations such as West Africa, Asia, and Central and South America -- countries that on average have extremely small demand for the product they depend on for their livelihoods. There are a number of social, economic and environmental inequalities that arise in the production of this luxury crop. Evidence of human trafficking and child slave labor have been found in the supply chain, according to a 2010 investigation

A better way to wash pesticides off apples.

A better way to wash pesticides off apples.Polishing an apple with your shirt might remove some dust and dirt, but getting rid of pesticide residues could take a little more work. Researchers now report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, that washing apples with a common household product -- baking soda -- could do the trick for residues on the surfaces of the fruit. The use of pesticides can help increase crop yield, but concerns over their potential effects on human health have been raised over the years. Washing could be one effective strategy to clean pesticides off produce, and it is standard practice in the food industry. But some of the plant-protecting compounds that get absorbed by fruits and vegetables might not be easily removed using current cleaning methods. Lili He and colleagues wanted to find out which washing method can most effectively reduce pesticides.

The advent of 'green' cattle.

The advent of 'green' cattle.Implications of livestock farming on climate change should not be drawn from aggregate statistics, reveals a study based on a new method of carbon footprinting for pasture-based cattle production systems that can assess the impacts of individual animals. The new method, developed by a team from the University of Bristol and Rothamsted Research, records the environmental impact of each animal separately before calculating the overall burden of a farm. Existing methods of carbon footprinting are primarily designed to quantify total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a particular farm, and are therefore unable to provide information on environmental performances of specific animals. The ability to identify "green" cattle within a herd -- cattle that produce lower emissions per kilogram of liveweight gain -- promises more sustainable farming, they report in the study