University of Otago researchers are helping lead international studies which have discovered that exposure to cattle and rice farming are risk factors for the devastating disease leptospirosis in northern Tanzania.

What makes someone go from simply being hungry to full-on “hangry?” More than just a simple drop in blood sugar, this combination of hunger and anger may be a complicated emotional response involving an interplay of biology, personality and environmental cues, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Milk in parts of Ukraine has radioactivity levels up to five times over the country’s official safe limit, new research shows.

The number of drug-resistant malaria cases is increasing — posing a serious world health threat.

There is a link between higher serum vitamin D levels and lower plasma cholesterol levels in primary school children, new research from the University of Eastern Finland shows. Children whose serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels exceeded 80 nmol/l had lower plasma total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels than children whose serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were below 50 nmol/l, which is often regarded as a threshold value for vitamin D sufficiency. 25-hydroxyvitamin D is the major circulating form of vitamin D. The findings were reported in one of the leading journals of endocrinology, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Field trials for a vaccine to protect cattle against bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB) would need to involve 500 herds – potentially as many as 75,000-100,000 cattle – to demonstrate cost effectiveness for farmers, concludes a study published today in the journal eLife.

James Cook University scientists have discovered a technique to apply natural plant extracts such as Tea Tree Oil as a coating for medical devices, a process which could prevent millions of infections every year.

Scientists have zeroed in on a culprit that spurs damaging inflammation in the heart following a heart attack. The guilty party is a type of immune cell that tries to heal the injured heart but instead triggers inflammation that leads to even more damage.

While images of crimson-colored lava erupting from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano continue to captivate the world, one of the greatest concerns is toxic sulfur dioxide gas emanating from every new fissure in the volcano.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2), which mixes with other air pollutants, can harm the eyes, skin and the respiratory system. At a minimum, it causes short-term breathing difficulties and is particularly hazardous for those with conditions like asthma or emphysema.

Mucus and other airway secretions that are expelled when a person with the flu coughs or exhales appear to protect the virus when it becomes airborne, regardless of humidity levels, a creative experiment conducted by the University of Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech discovered.