Monthly Archives: October 2014

An ancient rift among giraffes gives us clues on how to conserve them

The number of giraffe subspecies, and the relationship between them, remains controversial. Research, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, uses a new analysis of mitochondrial DNA to help resolve these questions, with implications for the conservation of these unique animals. How to recognise a giraffe Giraffes, unsurprisingly for such distinct animals, have long attracted considerable interest… Read more »

Biology

BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation on the road

  In March of next year BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation (BMC SSMR) will be two years old.  Since successfully incorporating with the journal  Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy & Technology (SMARRT) in 2013, BMC SSMR is growing and attracting new research covering a broad and comprehensive range of areas in sports science and… Read more »

Medicine

Cautious optimism as Irish childhood obesity rates plateau

Scales

Janas Harrington is a lecturer at University College Cork with an interest nutritional epidemiology and public health nutrition and Eimear Keane is a PhD student at the department of epidemiology and public health at University College Cork with a focus on trends and determinants of  childhood obesity. Both are co-authors on a research article published in… Read more »

Health

Living with schizophrenia, whoever you are

  It’s World Mental Health Day 2014 and BMC Psychiatry discusses why we should all be thinking about “living with schizophrenia”.     You may not know it yet, but you have been living with schizophrenia.  So has the person sitting next to you, and the person next to them (you see where I’m going… Read more »

Medicine
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Behind the image: Death Valley

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“An endorheic basin in Death Valley, California. Although annualprecipitation rarely exceeds 100 mm/yr, a small number of plants are able to survive on the gravely slopes of the valley and on the muddy lakebed. Thousands of years ago this valley would have been far more wet and lushly vegetated.” Ever since he was young, Benjamin… Read more »

Biology

Peer review, tooth decay and great spider crabs – highlights of the BMC-Series: September 2014

Body size evolution in sloths • Parents’ experiences of neonatal intensive care units • Dental caries and the sugar intake goal • Ocean acidification and the great spider crab • Acetylcholinesterase against gastric cancer • Peer review   Evolutionary biology: Body size evolution in sloths. The two living genera of sloths are both small-bodied and arboreal… Read more »

Biology Medicine