Consumers can reduce the risk of Campylobacter food poisoning by up to 99.2% by using disinfectant wipes in the kitchen after preparing poultry, according to a new study

Thinking "time is money" can be a barrier for people to act in environmentally friendly ways, even for tasks like recycling that take mere seconds, according to UBC research.

"Putting a price tag on time leaves individuals to focus on their own needs and goals, as opposed to the needs and goals of others, including the environment," says Ashley Whillans, PhD student in UBC's Department of Psychology and lead author of a paper on the subject. The paper featured five studies that employed different methods, ranging from the analysis of a British household survey to true and false quizzes. The research covered more than 7,000 individuals.

Do overweight kids watch more television, or does television cause weight kids? That has long been the contention for people seeking a magic bullet in obesity: If we just reduce television time, kids won't be fat.

Researchers have performed the first human-based study to identify calcium channels in cerebral arteries and determine the distinct role each channel plays in helping control blood flow to the brain. The study appears in the May issue of The Journal of General Physiology.

The contractile activity of smooth muscle cells in the walls of cerebral arteries determines the degree of constriction they experience (known as arterial tone) and thereby controls blood flow. Arterial tone is regulated in large part by the influx of calcium through voltage-gated calcium (CaV) channels, which are found in the membranes of excitable cells throughout the body. However, much of what is known about the identity and function of brain arterial CaV channels comes from experiments in rodents.

Stroke is a frequent and dreaded complication of atrial fibrillation. But predicting which of the estimated six million Americans with a-fib are at highest risk has long challenged physicians weighing stroke risk against the serious side effects posed by lifelong therapy with warfarin and other blood thinners.

Now researchers from Johns Hopkins performing sophisticated motion studies of heart MRI scans have found that specific altered function in the left atrium -- one of the heart's four chambers -- may signal stroke risk in those with a-fib and, possibly, those without it. The imaging technique combines standard MRI scans with a motion-tracking software that analyzes cardiac muscle movement.

Although closely related to the notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, a new lineage of dinosaur discovered in Chile is proving to be an evolutionary jigsaw puzzle, as it preferred to graze upon plants.

Palaeontologists are referring to Chilesaurus diegosuarezi as a 'platypus' dinosaur because of its extremely bizarre combination of characters that include a proportionally small skull and feet more akin to primitive long-neck dinosaurs.