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Major Didier Pericou told The Times of Europe, "When we first went out in the helicopter looking for the body, we saw numerous vultures without realizing what they were doing." Pericou added that the incident has reignited calls from local farmers to allow hunting of the birds. The Times reported that Pyrénéan farmers have been demanding the right to shoot the birds, known as Griffon Vultures, because they've been attacking sheep and cows. But the species is protected in France and has lost access to its normal diet of carcasses due to European health and safety regulations.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — State lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a pair of consumer protection bills Monday that prevent health insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions and limit how much more insurers can charge older residents. The legislation updates California laws to match new rules under the federal Affordable Care Act and will give state agencies the power to enforce and regulate individual insurance rules. The Assembly passed ABx1-2 on a 49-20 vote, while the Senate passed SBx1-2 on a 27-9 vote. The Assembly bill makes changes to the insurance code, while the Senate bill makes changes...

Public School 244 in Queens, New York has become the first public school to have an all-vegetarian menu. Sounds wonderful, right? A school is offering only healthy choices to students to instill a life-long habit of eating healthy. I am sure there will be other schools that follow. We know the statistics of obesity among our youth in this country and schools are stepping up to educate our kids and help create healthy patterns; except the only part is that they are not educating. Education is the process of giving tools to a student, imparting knowledge and letting students reason...

There are now 322 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S. and 4 billion worldwide with over 5 million cell towers and antennas scattered across the planet. 20 million Americans currently use wireless laptops, tablets, and routers, and according to the Wireless Association, that number has increased by 50% in just the last two years. Wireless devices emit radio frequency radiation (RFR) that consists of low intensity high frequency radio waves of non-ionizing radiation in the microwave range of approximately 900 MHz to 2.4 GHz. Wireless RFR now permeates most cities and rural areas and is spreading at lightning speed...

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

USBC News Wire- According to a tracking poll performed by the The Kaiser Family Foundation, 42% of Americans aren’t even aware that the Obama’s controversial “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (PPACA) is actually a law. The poll aims to track public awareness and participation as the signature act of an increasingly unpopular President nears full implementation. The 906 page healthcare regulation act, often referred to as “Obamacare,” was rushed through the US Congress by the radical Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Democrats pushed through what would become Obama’s signature regulatory act by using a super-majority to override objections and concerns...

Trail mix. Potato chips. And now gum. With a growing number of foods boasting added caffeine for an energy boost, the Food and Drug Administration says it's time to investigate their safety. The FDA's new look at added caffeine and its effects on children and adolescents is in response to a caffeinated gum introduced this week by Wrigley.

According to a new report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, everyone wants Michelle Obama's arms. That's right, while the rate of overall procedures has declined overall since 2000, the demand for upper arm lifts, or brachioplasty, has exploded, jumping a breathtaking 4,378 percent in the last decade.

Washington, DC - These findings are the result of a single study and more research is needed on the effects of mango consumption on human health. Consumption of mangoes may potentially have a positive effect on blood sugar in obese individuals and help to limit inflammation, according to a new research. The study led by Edralin Lucas, Ph.D., associate professor of nutritional sciences at Oklahoma State University, examined the effects of daily mango consumption on clinical parameters and body composition in obese subjects (body mass index, BMI = 30kg/m2). Twenty adults (11 males and 9 females) participated in the study,...

BRUSSELS, April 25 (UPI) -- The European Union will be unable to meet its agricultural policy goals unless it embraces genetically engineered crops, Spanish researchers said. Paul Christou of the University of Lleida-Agrotecnio Center in Spain and colleagues said studies suggest the EU's stand on genetically-modified crops is undermining its competitiveness in the agricultural sector and that of its humanitarian activities in the developing world. "Many aspects of the EU agricultural policy, including those concerning GMOs, are internally inconsistent and actively obstruct what the policy sets out to achieve," the scientists wrote in the journal Trends in Plant Science,. A...

The latest bad news in the hunt for an AIDS vaccine: The government halted a large U.S. study on Thursday, saying the experimental shots aren't preventing HIV infection. Nor did the shots reduce the amount of the AIDS virus in the blood when people who'd been vaccinated later became infected, the National Institutes of Health said. "It's disappointing," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But, "there was important information gained from this" study that will help determine what to try next.

The rollout of a new national health care program is sure to hit some bumps in the road. But after one of the Affordable Care Act's authors and proponents called the implementation a potential train wreck, Republicans in Congress seized the opportunity to point out the law's shortcomings and revive their arguments for repealing it. After Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who helped draft the health care law, used the phrase "train wreck" to characterize the potentially rocky implementation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday penned an op-ed for Reuters arguing that President Obama should explain to the public...

An effort by House Republicans to highlight problems with President Barack Obama's health care law by bailing out a program for people with pre-existing medical conditions appeared to backfire Wednesday. GOP leaders postponed a scheduled vote after the measure met strong opposition from two directions: from conservative groups resistant to any federal role in health care and from Democrats who objected that the Republicans planned to pay for the high-risk patient program by raiding a disease prevention provision the administration says is essential to the overhaul. The legislation, a departure from the usual GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Health...

As described here and elsewhere, one provision of Obamacare seeks to tempt state legislatures into expanding state Medicaid eligibility and spending by placing 100 percent the expansion’s costs on the federal budget for the first three years, and 90 percent from the year 2020 on in perpetuity. Gov. Rick Snyder was relying on that Washington politician’s promise when he recommended that Michigan go along with the optional expansion. (It’s worth noting that Medicaid is the primary driver of government health care spending in Michigan that has already grown some 50 percent over the past decade.) Legislators here and in more...

The taste of beer, without any effect from alcohol itself, can trigger dopamine release in the brain that is associated with drinking and other drugs of abuse, researchers have claimed. Using positron emission tomography (PET), the researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine tested 49 men with two scans, one in which they tasted beer, and the second in which they tasted Gatorade. The researchers were looking for evidence of increased levels of dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter that has long been associated with alcohol and other drugs of abuse. The scans showed significantly more dopamine activity following the taste of...

A federal appeals court is to hear arguments Wednesday on whether a first-of-its-kind law that prohibits licensed mental health professionals in California from offering therapies aimed at making gay and lesbian teenagers straight violates the civil rights of practitioners and parents. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering two legal challenges to the ban on "sexual orientation change efforts" that was passed by the California Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall.

Over the last few years there have been a number of studies suggesting that male circumcision may protect against HIV infection. Several possible reasons have been offered by experts as to why circumcision offers protection against HIV infection. Now here's one more reason... A study led by Lance Price of the Translational Genomics Research Institute suggests that a significant shift in the bacterial community or microbiome of the penis as a result of circumcision could explain HIV protection. The researchers found that in men who were circumcised, the total bacterial load under the foreskin was 33.3 percent less than those...

‘SHE’S NOW OR NEVER’ FOUNDER MENNE TALIVA’A HALL RUNS IN NORTH SHORE MARATHON (Honolulu, HAWAI'I)--She’s running to fight obesity, diabetes and heart disease. She’s running for her family. “I run for change!” exclaims Menne Taliva’a Hall, founder of a health and wellness sisterhood and Blog called ‘She’s Now or Never’ or SNN. "My quest to run marathons is a demonstration to prove that change is possible! I leave footprints in honor of family and friends that have passed on and for those that I love dearly." After shedding 150 pounds and finishing more than 20 half-marathons, Hall – blogger and...

Researchers in China have shown that the organic component of mother of pearl can help repair damaged teeth, by acting as a template for the mineralisation of tooth enamel.Tooth enamel is made up of rod-like crystals of hydroxyapatite, a calcium phosphate mineral. It is the hardest tissue in the body, but is susceptible to erosion by food and bacterial acids. Once gone, it never naturally reforms, and cavities must be fixed using manmade materials. Methods of artificially rebuilding enamel often involve extreme temperature, pressure or pH conditions that make them impractical for clinical use.Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences...

PHILADELPHIA — Take five or 10 minutes, the professor said, and write down things that you love, like, need or enjoy. Now pair up with someone you don’t know and spend 20 minutes introducing yourself. Talk about whatever you want. But don’t mention anything that you wrote down. Try going on for a half-hour without a word about the most important things in life. Imagine a full day. “It might be difficult,” said instructor Robin Brennan. “That’s what this course is about. That is just a glimpse of what it is like for somebody who is LGBT” — lesbian, gay,...