The international conservation organisation, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has much to worry about, but one of its key concerns is Antarctica, which, with its surrounding Southern Ocean, comprises 40 per cent of the surface of the planet. Until recently pristine, with climate change it is becoming increasingly accessible and attracting interest to the vast natural resources it contains. S...

The dramatic decline in polar ice is being increasingly documented and a new study reveals how biological systems are responding to Arctic climate change. Meanwhile tourists are heading in, adding to the pressure on these fragile regions. In the past few months researchers discovered that an enormous ice shelf had broken free of an island in Canada’s Arctic in 2005. The piece of ice is larger t...

Disease-related worries are frequently reported in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but longitudinal assessments of these worries are scarce. In the present study, patients completed the rating form of IBD patient concerns (RFIPC) at three occasions during one year. One-way analysis of variance (ANO VA), t-tests, bivariate correlation, and linear regression analyses were used to analyse data. ...

OBJECTIVE Worrying about one's job, family, financial situation and health is distressing. How intense are these worries in the general population? METHODS An inquiry representative of the German population (N=2473, age>14 years) was performed. The total score of the "Questionnaire for Assessing Subjective Physical Well-Being" (FEW) and the screening scale of the "Trier Inventory for the Asse...

The report also highlights the use of smallpox in bioterrorism as a particularly worrying threat. Authorities around the world should work together to combat the kind of bioterrorism that occurred with the letters warning of anthrax after September 11 2001, it says. A flu pandemic would affect more than 1.5 billion people, or 25 per cent of the world's population. Even if the disease was mild i...

A decision taken with the intention of protecting society against attack by biological weapons could, perversely, increase the very same danger. That is the implication of a debate now raging in the USA over the support of research on pathogens that might be used by terrorists. An alleged shift in funding in the wake of the 9/11 disaster and the ‘anthrax letters’ sent during 2001 means that mor...