As damaging and dangerous as the steady increase in food prices has been there is something much more ominous taking place and while it hasn't received the kind of media attention that it should the effects could be much more paralyzing. Yes there is a shortage in the world's food supply and yes that has caused prices to climb but what many people don't know is that the food that is being produced may carry serious health risks, a problem that trumps the issue of food costs. While the underlying causes of these health risks have largely been ignored OffTheGridNews.net has ...

The Fifth International Symposium on Refractive Surgery, Cataract and Cornea will be looking into new advances in eye surgery and bringing together leading experts to share knowledge from within the field. This will come from speakers that will be coming to Israel to share information on their own specialist subjects and this includes representatives from the USA, Canada, Germany and Belgium. Some of the subject matter to be discussed will analyse corneal challenges and how refractive surgery using lasers can be customised. In the study of refractive cataracts doctors ...

The programme is part of Peppies for Possums which will look to plant hundreds of peppermint trees as these are the main food source consumed by the animal, making up 95% of their diet. Western Ringtail Possums have seen a population decline of 90% and are under serious risk of even further reductions due primarily to urban developments which have encroached onto their territory, attacks by predators and disease carried by domestic pets. Peppermint trees are also struggling to survive due to unknown reasons but there is now a lack of food and the plantings it's ...

The web development agency Bird and Co has developed a new plugin for the popular blog tool and publishing platform WordPress. WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend the functionality beyond the standard features which come with the basic download. The Bird and Co plugin 'WP Deploy' has been designed to overcome some of the difficulties faced by developers when working in teams using version control software and multiple stages of deployment. The new plugin, created by the business web design company Bird and Co, streamlines ...

AlhondigaBilbao has launched a photography collection entitled 50 Years of the USSR Through the Lens of Dmitri Baltermants. The 20th century artist used his camera to capture a huge variety of images relating to the country, from portraits of political leaders to panoramic pictures of wild Russian landscapes. Running until June 29th, the collection will give visitors a chance to enjoy a broad selection of his work, which is on display in Bilbao as part of the venue's Russia-Spain Year. In a statement, the organisers said: "Baltermants was able to protect the ...

London's Clapham Common will host the inaugural Big Feastival in July, combining top-notch food with great bands. Soul II Soul, The Charlatans, Roots Manuva and Athlete are among the headliners at the three-day event, which will raise money for The Jamie Oliver Foundation and The Prince's Trust. Taking place from July 1st to 3rd, the festival will feature pop-up kitchens run by representatives from a number of the UK's top restaurants. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is heavily involved in the creation of the event and his Fifteen and Barbecoa will be dishing up food. ...

Dogs of all shapes and sizes will be on display at the Thailand International Dog Show this summer. Running from June 30th to July 3rd, the event sees canines take part in competitions and shows, while their owners find out more about the latest treats and services for their animal companions. The organisers have revealed that more than 200 exhibitors will be present at the 2011 edition, the tenth in its history. They expect about 200,000 people to attend the show at the Impact Muang Thong Thani in Bangkok, which can be reached by public transport from Pattaya. As ...

The Tak Bat Dok Mai Festival from 14th to 16th July 2011 is unique due to the flowers called Dok Khao Phansa which only flower during the time of Buddhist Lent and are found within Saraburi. During the festival visitors will be able to see this rare species which is found on hill slopes and blooms with yellow or blue and violet colours. The flowers are becoming increasingly harder to find so roses and jasmine are also often used instead. For the ceremony people line the street from the temple with seven tiers and wait for the monks that are arrive in the hundreds ...

MIG Real Estate, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based real estate investment company formerly known as Stoneridge Capital Partners, has acquired the 151,662-square-foot Rainbow Corporate Center in Las Vegas through a special servicer for the property. This is the firm's third Las Vegas acquisition since October 2010. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The mixed-use property features two three-story office buildings totaling 147,116 square feet and a 4,546-square-foot single-story retail building anchored by Starbucks Coffee. "Rainbow Corporate Center is a well-located, ...

Service USA, one of the leading providers of field consumer and business electronics warranty services in the United States, announced today that it is now offering a wide variety of warranty services for consumers in Canada. "We are very proud to offer our very popular warranty care services to customers across Canada," said Will McCusker, J.D., President of Service USA Inc. "These new service offerings will provide businesses with a convenient outsourced warranty service offering while consumers can enjoy the peace of mind that their warranty services ...

According to Niche Retail, small business owners need an effective brand strategy in order to succeed in today's highly competitive ecommerce market. The firm reports that although it's not impossible, in order to compete, even the smallest of niche firms require a compelling website with search engine friendly, highly optimized content that is designed to generate maximum sales, while also giving users access to a powerful administration and catalog management system on the backend. According to Niche Retail, small businesses that don't take advantage of everything ...

Springtime is the best time for thin brick installation, according to American Brick Company (Ambrico). Ambrico, creators of the popular EZ-Wall System and industry leaders in thin brick sales, report that now is the perfect time of year to get those thin brick installation projects completed. The company typically sees an increase in installations during this time of year, as many companies work to get their project done before the weather heats up. Although thin brick installation requires far less effort when compared to traditional brick installation, the mild temperatures ...

CHICAGO -- Newly diagnosed cancer patients frequently face hurdles in obtaining an appointment for care with an oncologist, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennnsylvania that will be presented Saturday, June 4 at the 2011 annual meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology (Abstract #6128). Even callers with private health insurance had difficulty scheduling an appointment, with just 22 percent of them obtaining a slot, compared to 29 percent of uninsured patients and 17 percent of patients on Medicaid, according to ...

Intensity modulated radiation therapy, a newer, more precise form of radiation therapy, causes fewer gastrointestinal side effects when combined with hormone therapy than using three-dimensional radiation therapy, according to a study published in the June issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). Three-dimensional radiation therapy (3D-CRT) combined with hormone therapy has been proven very effective at treating men with intermediate to high-risk prostate ...

(CHICAGO) –– Women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations, which are linked to a very high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, can safely take hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) to mitigate menopausal symptoms after surgical removal of their ovaries, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania which will be presented Monday, June 6 during the American Society for Clinical Oncology's annual meeting (Abstract #1501). Results of the prospective study indicated that women with BRCA mutations who had their ovaries removed and ...

Afficionados of modern poured-concrete design were in for a rude awakening last month when they heard NJIT Assistant Professor Matt Burgermaster's presentation at the 64th annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians. "Edison's 'Single-Pour System: Inventing Seamless Architecture" illustrated how Thomas Edison invented and patented in 1917 an innovative construction system to mass produce prefabricated and seamless concrete houses. Typically most people associate this style of architectural design and type of building technology with the European avant-garde ...

Bolton-based delivery specialist Parcel2Go has been entrusted with making a parcel delivery that could result in the town gaining city status. Following a ceremony at Bolton Town Hall, Parcel2Go took charge of the metropolitan borough council's bid to have Bolton officially recognised as a city. The firm will ensure that the package is safely delivered to the Cabinet Office and placed in the hands of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Mr Clegg will discuss the merits of all the bids received with cabinet members, before making a final recommendation to the Queen. ...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — June 1, 2011 — Deadly bacteria may be evolving antibiotic resistance by mimicking human proteins, according to a new study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). This process of "molecular mimicry" may help explain why bacterial human pathogens, many of which were at one time easily treatable with antibiotics, have re-emerged in recent years as highly infectious public health threats, according to the study published May 26 in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) One. "This mimicry allows the bacteria to evade its host's ...

Scientists at the University of Southern California have pinned down the region of the brain responsible for a key survival trait: our ability to comprehend a scene—even one never previously encountered—in a fraction of a second. The key is to process the interacting objects that comprise a scene more quickly than unrelated objects, according to corresponding author Irving Biederman, professor of psychology and computer science in the USC Dornsife College and the Harold W. Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience. The study appears in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Physicians can help their patients follow prescribed treatments and achieve healthier results – particularly in chronic disease management – by using a three-pronged strategy developed by a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, Texas State University-San Marcos, and La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. The Information-Motivation-Strategy (IMS) Model – developed after synthesizing findings from more than 100 large-scale studies and meta-analyses conducted between 1948 and 2009 – appears in the peer-reviewed journal Health ...

HOUSTON ― A vaccine for one of the most lethal cancers, advanced melanoma, has improved response rate and progression-free survival for patients when combined with the immunotherapy drug Interleukin-2, according to research led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Indiana University Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care. The findings, published in the June 2 New England Journal of Medicine, mark the first vaccine study in the disease – and one of the first in cancer overall – to show clinical benefit in a randomized Phase III ...

The first study of the social and ethical issues associated with a provocative approach to treatment for ulcerative colitis has found that the majority of potential patients are eager for what is now called "fecal microbiota transplantation" to become available, although many have concerns about donor selection, screening, and methods of delivery. Bacterial aggregates derived from fecal matter have been used sporadically to treat gastrointestinal disease for more than 50 years. These were often last-ditch efforts aimed at restoring microbial balance for patients with ...

University of Houston researchers have developed a method for creating single-crystal arrays of the material graphene, an advance that opens the possibility of a replacement for silicon in high-performance computers and electronics. The work by UH researchers and their collaborators is featured on the cover of the June issue of Nature Materials. Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon that was first fabricated in 2004. Single-crystal arrays of the material could be used to create a new class of high-speed transistors and integrated circuits that use less energy than ...

WASHINGTON, DC, May 24, 2011 — Children whose parents get divorced generally don't experience detrimental setbacks in the pre-divorce period, but often fall behind their peers—and don't catch up—when it comes to math and interpersonal social skills after their parents begin the divorce process, according to a new study. In addition, the study, which appears in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, finds that children of divorce are more likely to struggle with anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, and sadness. This increase in "internalizing problem behaviors" ...

WASHINGTON, DC, May 25, 2011 — Black and Mexican American doctors and lawyers aren't any more likely to play "high-status" sports such as golf or tennis than less educated people within their racial-ethnic groups, and more educated blacks may actually be less inclined to do so, suggests a new study in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior Relying on nationally representative data from the 1998 National Health Interview Survey-Sample Adult Prevention Module, and focusing on 17,455 adults ages 25 to 60, the study finds that racial-ethnic differences ...