ARS Newslink

ARS News Service
USDA Agricultural Research Service
January 14, 2011

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Hot news about food and health:
While a study found that a high proportion of nursing facility residents had low concentrations of zinc in their blood, it also showed that those with normal blood zinc concentrations were about 50 percent less likely to develop pneumonia than those with low concentrations-and that's just one of the tidbits in ARS' latest edition of its online newsletter "Food and Nutrition Research Briefs." (1/10) http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2011/110110.htm

Saving water to save bucks:
Storing just one inch of water in an acre of soil is worth $25 to $30 per acre in the Central Great Plains, according to ARS scientists who calculated this total by using 10-year average crop prices in equations they developed to relate crop yields to stored water levels. (1/11) http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2011/110111.htm

A new way to wage war on ticks:
Nootkatone, a component of essential oil in grapefruit peels that's already used in many food, beverage and personal care products, could take on a whole new role as a repellent of ticks that spread Lyme disease, according to an ARS entomologist. (1/12) http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2011/110112.htm

A new vaccine for Newcastle disease:
An ARS microbiologist and his colleagues have borrowed a gene from a wild virus to create a new vaccine for Newcastle disease that not only reduces the mortality and severity of this disease in poultry, but also decreases the amount of virus spread by the birds. (1/13) http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2011/110113.htm

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Newslink is the weekly e-mail pointer for web links to stories issued by the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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ARS News Service, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service
5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128 NewsService@ars.usda.gov | www.ars.usda.gov/news Phone (301) 504-1636 | fax (301) 504-1486