Mediterranean
1. Mediterranean Diet Trumps Low-fat Diet for Diabetes Management
Patients on Low-Carbohydrate Mediterranean Diet Avoided Medication, Lost More Weight, and Decreased Some Coronary Risk Factors
Barcelona, Spain, 30 August: Coffee is routinely consumed in countries within the Mediterranean basin. Coffee, an infusion of ground, roasted coffee beans, is the most widely consumed behaviourally active substance in the world. It contains several hundred different substances including, antioxidants, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, minerals, phenolic compounds and alkaloids.
NEW YORK -- Both being more physically active and adhering to a Mediterranean-type diet appears to be associated with reduced Alzheimer's risk, according to a new report in the August 12, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
An international research team has developed a mathematical and cartographical model that make it possible to view how Mediterranean landscapes evolve in the aftermath of forest fires. In order to carry out this research study, published recently in the journal Environmental Modelling & Software, the authors studied a Special Protection Area for Birds to the south west of Madrid.
Scientists have recorded a decline in winter precipitation over the past 60 years in Spain, and they now forecast that precipitation will also decrease in spring and summer. A team from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (CSIC) has studied rainfall data from 1950 to 2006 and the climate projections for coming decades, showing that less rain will fall in future over the Iberian Peninsula.
Researchers have today published the complete genome sequence of the Schistosoma mansoni, a parasitic worm -- commonly known as a blood fluke -- that causes devastating disease. The World Health Organization ranks schistosomiasis as a neglected disease of the poor, affecting 210 million people in 76 countries, and each year causing 280,000 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
After 10 years of biochemical and molecular analysis of the Tyrrhenoleuctra plecoptera that live in the Western Mediterranean, Spanish and Italian scientists have now demonstrated that one of the insect populations of this group is a distinct and, therefore, new species.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- -- Coastal marine ecosystems are at risk worldwide as a result of human activities, according to scientists at UC Santa Barbara who have recently published a study in the Journal of Conservation Letters. The authors have performed the first integrated analysis of all coastal areas of the world.
Researchers from the Department of Science Education-Biology at the University of Haifa-Oranim have managed to make out the "self-irrigating" mechanism of the desert rhubarb, which enables it to harvest 16 times the amount of water than otherwise expected for a plant in this region based on the quantities of rain in the desert. This is the first example of a self-irrigating plant worldwide.
The resistance pattern for antibiotics in gulls is the same as in humans, and a new study by Uppsala University researchers shows that nearly half of Mediterranean gulls in southern France have some form of resistance to antibiotics. The study is being published today in the journal PLoS One.
Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What's more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water.
Despite the great difficulties in quantifying all the environmental and human factors that affect sediment discharge by rivers into the sea, a group of Catalan scientists has compiled data to describe and evaluate the solid sediment discharge from nine river basins in Catalonia -- the Ter, Foix, Gaia, Besós, Llobregat, Francolí, Tordera, Muga, and Fluvia.
Researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia (ICP), from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, directed by professor Salvador Moyà-Solà, publish this week in the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS) the results of their research regarding the find of a new genus of hominoid primate at els Hostalets de Pierola, l'Anoia.
"Anybody who observes waves can see that they are not the same height in winter and summer, but rather that their height varies over time, and we have applied a 'non- seasonal' statistical model in order to measure extreme events such as these", Fernando J.
The Mediterranean region is a very active cyclone area, and is often affected by these atmospheric phenomena, which bring strong winds and heavy rain. Despite the efforts of the scientific community to improve numerical cyclone prediction, the systems developed are costly.
