Livestock manure, left to decompose naturally, emits two particularly potent greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) – nitrous oxide and methane. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nitrous oxide warms the atmosphere 310 times more than carbon dioxide, methane does so 21 times more.

Converting livestock manure into a domestic renewable fuel source could lead to a significant reduction in GHGs and generate enough electricity to meet up to three per cent of North America's entire consumption needs, according to research published in the Institute of Physics' Environmental Research Letters.

The paper, 'Cow Power: The Energy and Emissions Benefits of Converting Manure to Biogas', has implications for all countries with livestock as it is the first attempt to outline a procedure for quantifying the national amount of renewable energy that herds of cattle and other livestock can generate and the concomitant GHG emission reductions.

Isoflavones (daidzein, genistein and glycitein), found mainly in soy beans and soy-derived products, are plant-derived compounds with estrogenic effects. While animal studies have linked the high consumption of isoflavones with infertility, there had been little evidence of this effect in humans.

Now research published in the journal Human Reproduction states that men who eat an average of half a serving of soy foods a day have lower concentrations of sperm than men who do not eat soy foods. The association was particularly marked in men who were overweight or obese, the study found.

In the largest study in humans to examine the relationship between semen quality and phytoestrogens (plant compounds that can behave like the hormone, oestrogen), Dr Jorge Chavarro, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, and his colleagues found that men who ate the most soy food had 41 million sperm per millilitre less than men who did not consume soy products. (The "normal" sperm concentration for men ranges between 80-120 million/ml).

According to a study conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts. The researchers also showed that by one metabolic measure, women benefited more than men from the training.

The researchers measured heart metabolism in sedentary older people both at rest and during administration of dobutamine, a drug that makes the heart race as if a person were exercising vigorously. At the start of the study, they found that in response to the increased energy demands produced by dobutamine, the hearts of the study subjects didn't increase their uptake of energy in the form of glucose (blood sugar).

Although state lotteries, on average, return just 53 cents for every dollar spent on a ticket, people continue to pour money into them — especially low-income people, who spend a larger percentage of their incomes on lottery tickets than do the wealthier segments of society. A new Carnegie Mellon University study sheds light on the reasons why low-income lottery players eagerly invest in a product that provides poor returns.

In the study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, participants who were made to feel subjectively poor bought nearly twice as many lottery tickets as a comparison group that was made to feel subjectively more affluent. The Carnegie Mellon findings point to poverty's central role in people's decisions to buy lottery tickets.

If you walk down a US city street and don't think a lot of people are overweight, you probably are. Likewise, thin people will increasingly be regarded as an anomaly to be eliminated out of concern as people get heavier. In a culture of obesity, thin is like a cancer.

Research by economists at the University of Warwick, Dartmouth College, and the University of Leuven, finds that people are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them - human beings keep up with the weight of the society they live in, which can lead to a spiral of imitative obesity.

The researchers will present their results on Friday July 25th at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference in Cambridge Massachusetts in a paper entitled Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility at the NBER Summer Institute on Health Economics.

LONDON, July 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Output of New Molecular Entities Drops to Historic Low as Pharma Companies Face Increasing Competition from Generics Companies

The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters today announced the availability of the newly published CMR International 2008 Pharmaceutical R&D Factbook, an indispensable reference and business planning tool for decision makers in pharmaceutical R&D, corporate finance, business strategy, marketing planning and corporate communications. This year's Factbook offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of emerging trends in worldwide pharmaceutical R&D and has been considerably enhanced with data sourced from other Thomson Reuters businesses providing insight into areas such as generic drugs and patents.

WASHINGTON, July 24 /PRNewswire/ --

The PIDX International North Sea Forum was held on July 9 in Aberdeen, Scotland, offering an opportunity for the North Sea's independent oil and gas operators to share best practices on eCommerce. The Aberdeen meeting was the largest regional forum to date. Approximately 50 company representatives from various operators and suppliers shared experiences and best practices with eCommerce to help enhance their current business processes.

The next meetings will be held in London on November 7, 2008, and in the Middle East shortly following.

CHANDLER'S FORD EASTLEIGH, England, July 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Federal Signal Corporation's (NYSE: FSS) Safety and Security Systems Group, a leader in advancing security and well-being, today announced that its PIPS Technology Ltd subsidiary has supplied Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to Siemens Traffic Controls, as part of a contract awarded by Transport for London to provide an enforcement structure for London's Low Emission Zone (LEZ). The contract is for the established Spike+ cameras, already in use worldwide for applications such as road user charging and enforcement.

The aim of the scheme is to improve air quality in the city by deterring the most polluting vehicles from driving within Greater London.

ESPOO and SAN DIEGO, July 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Companies Agree to Settle All Litigation -

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) today announced that they have entered into a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and other technologies. The agreement will result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission.

Our friends at LiveScience love Garth's stuff so much (*) they threw out the idea for a nifty widget that will give you a little drop-down tool and let you see lots of his equations.

So if you are unsure whether or not to bluff in Texas Hold 'Em, simply stop the game, pull out your iPhone, and plug in the numbers.

Likewise if you are standing in line at Starbucks and unsure how many cups of coffee you should have, this widget can tell you.

Basically, you can completely abdicate responsibility for your own decisions. Leave it to Garth. He knows what he's doing.