Grass plants can transport infectious prions.

Grass plants can transport infectious prions according to a research published online in an issue of Cell Reports. Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), shows that grass plants can bind, uptake and transport infectious prions. Prions are the protein-based infectious agents responsible for a group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk and moose. All are fatal brain diseases with incubation periods that last years. The team analyzed the retention of infectious prion protein and infectivity in wheat grass roots and leaves incubated with prion-contaminated brain material and discovered that even highly diluted amounts can bind to the roots and leaves. When the wheat grass was consumed by hamsters, the animals were infected with the disease. The team also learned that infectious prion proteins could be detected in plants exposed to urine and feces from prion-infected hamsters and deer. Researchers also found that plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant, which can act as a carrier of infectivity. This suggests that plants may play an important role in environmental prion contamination and the horizontal transmission of the disease.

How smelling food makes you fat.

How smelling food makes you fat. A new study by University of California, Berkeley, showed that obese mice who lost their sense of smell also lost weight. Researchers developed ways to temporarily eliminate the sense of smell in adult mice, and discovered that those mice that lost smell could eat a high-fat diet and stay a normal weight, while litter mates that retained the sense of smell ballooned to twice normal weight. Super-smellers gained more weight than did normal mice on the same high-fat diet. Smell-deficient mice burned excess fat instead of storing it, suggesting a link between smell and metabolism. The irony however, is that these slimmed-down but smell-deficient mice ate the same amount of fatty food as mice that retained their sense of smell and ballooned to twice their normal weight. In addition, mice with a boosted sense of smell -- super-smellers -- got even fatter on a high-fat diet than did mice with normal smell. The findings suggest that the odor of what we eat may play an important role in how the body deals with calories. If you can't smell your food, you may burn it rather than store it.more

Live-pig markets, traders could provide insight to controlling African swine fever.

Live-pig markets, traders could provide insight to controlling African swine fever. A new study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE has shown that Understanding how live pigs are traded between villages and backyard farmers can help health agencies better understand how devastating swine diseases spread. Researchers at the University of California, Davis' Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance and the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization examined patterns of live-pig trade in the republic of Georgia. The country was the first in Europe to be affected by African swine fever in 2007, and from there the disease spread to the Caucasus region, Russian Federation and Eastern Europe, where it is still actively spreading today. African swine fever has a mortality rate of over 90 percent in pigs, often killing within seven to 14 days. Endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, the virus is re-emerging in new areas and is a major threat to pork production worldwide, both through direct losses and the effects of culling, trade sanctions and export restrictions imposed by countries to stop its spread. There is currently no treatment or vaccine for the disease. more

Human urine as fertilizer.

Human urine as fertilizer.Urine, which most of us consider as waste, is a valuable resource which we can use directly as fertilizer.Urine is very safe, hygienic, easy to handle and collect, and easily available. An environmental engineer, Mr Isaac Bryant, said that human urine was part of domestic waste water, which could be used as fertilizer. The lecturer said that using urine as fertilizer posed minimal health risk to both the environment and human beings. He advised countries to tap into the resource rather than rely on chemical fertilizer which, he said, impacted negatively on the environment and posed a health risk to humans. He opined that instead of using chemical fertilizer for crops, human urine is better. “We can use human urine to cultivate crops such as maize, okro, tomato, pepper, garden eggs and some other vegetables. more

Epidemiologists, others advocate 'one-health' approach.

Epidemiologists, others advocate 'one-health' approach.Stakeholders identified one-health approach as the surest way to curtail public health challenges or diseases emergence in any country. Stakeholders at the Annual Scientific Conference of the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (NFELTP) have advocated “one-health approach” to address emergence and re-emergence of public health diseases in the country. The stakeholders are the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Health and African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), among others. Mr Joshua Obasanya, Chairman, Local Organising Committee of the conference, identified one-health approach as the surest way to curtail public health challenges or diseases emergence in any country. Obasanya said the conference was aimed at bringing together all agencies and relevant workforce that could bridge the gap between emerging and re-emerging diseases that were of animal origin and posed public health challenge. He said that six out of 10 public health diseases emanated from animals. He, however, said the only way to nip this public health challenge in the bud was through the collaborative efforts of health officials, environmentalists, veterinarians and laboratory scientists, among others. more

The role of routine,discipline and focus for business success.

The role of routine,discipline and focus for business success. 241 years ago, 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Over the course of his career, he would go on to serve the fledgling United States as governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, and, finally, the country's third president. Despite wearing so many hats in the government, Jefferson adhered to a relatively well-defined schedule throughout his life. Here's a look at the Founding Father's daily routine: Jefferson didn't wake up at a set time every day. Instead, he wrote that, "Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun." Typically, he would get out of bed whenever there was enough light for him to read the clock next to his bed. Before breakfast, the Founding Father would tend to his correspondence. Over the course of his life, he wrote somewhere around 20,000 letters. Jefferson typically ate breakfast at 8:00 a.m. According to the blog Early to Rise and Colonial Williamsburg, the meal would likely include tea, hot wheat and corn bread, cold ham, butter, and "hoe cakes" — or cornmeal pancakes — and would be served in the dining room. more

How health workers are reducing under 5 deaths in Ethiopia.

How health workers are reducing under 5 deaths. What does this chart mean? First, that descending red line captures one of the most amazing stories of human progress: It shows how the number of deaths of children under 5 per year has been cut in half since 1990. Second, hidden along that line are millions of stories of the incredible work being done by health officials, governments, donors, and parents around the world to help save all those lives. Here’s one of those stories. It begins with some remarkable women in Ethiopia and they are part of an innovative program that’s improved the health of millions of children in their country. Back in 1990, Ethiopia had one of the highest rates of child mortality in the world. One in five children were dying before their 5th birthdays. With few doctors and most of its population living in rural areas, Ethiopia struggled to provide basic health services to the country. Most women in rural areas gave birth at home. Then in 2000, the Ethiopian government made a commitment to improve its healthcare system. Ethiopia signed on to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which focused the world’s attention on fighting disease and ending poverty by using data to measure progress on health and development progress. As part of the goals, Ethiopia pledged to reduce under-five death rates by at least two-thirds by 2015. To achieve it, Ethiopia needed to find an effective way to deliver healthcare to the remotest corners of the country. But training thousands of new doctors to staff them would take years and would be extremely costly. Instead, Ethiopia created a community health worker program. They selected thousands of people, primarily young women with at least a 10th grade education, and trained them in a set of basic health skills—including how to deliver babies, administer immunizations, and provide family planning support—that are proven to save lives. Most of the health workers were recruited from the communities they served, helping to quickly build public trust in the new effort. more