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The leaders of Russia and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine held their first talks on Friday since Moscow annexed Crimea, airing ways to end their four-month conflict in a brief encounter during commemorations in France of the World War Two D-Day landings. French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought together Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko for a 15-minute meeting before they joined other dignitaries for lunch. Putin went on to have an equally short meeting with class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama in which, according to a White House official, the U.S. President urged him to recognize Poroshenko as Ukraine's leader and to cut off arms supplies to pro-Russian separatists. French officials have been plotting for weeks to use the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings - a key event helping to end World War Two - to try to break the ice in the most serious European secur

The impact of a deadly pig virus on U.S. trade is mounting, with 11 countries limiting imports of live hogs and one banning pork imports, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's top veterinarian said on Wednesday. El Salvador, Guatemala and South Africa have banned imports of live U.S. hogs following the discovery of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PEDv) in the United States last year, John Clifford, the USDA's chief veterinary officer, said. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China , class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan , the European Union and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Russia have restricted hog imports, while four other countries have imposed unofficial limitations, he said. Uzbekistan has banned imports of U.S. pork, while Costa Rica has banned imports of pork casings. "This is beginning to have a much greater impact than what any of us initially thought that it would," Clifford said about PEDv at an industry gathering in Des Moines,

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Saudi Arabia will test camels in the kingdom for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), its agriculture minister was quoted as saying, a day after a Saudi study reinforced a long-suspected link between the animals and human cases of the deadly virus. _0"> There have been 691 confirmed cases of MERS, including 284 deaths, in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Saudi Arabia since it was identified two years ago, and many scientists have said for months that camels are the most likely source of transmission from animals to humans. A case study published on Wednesday of a Saudi man who died from the disease last year appeared to back that up, scientists said. Agriculture Minister Fahad Balghunaim said a program to register and number class="mandelbrot_refrag"> livestock including camels had begun last year and would be accelerated, the Arab News English-language daily reported. He said all camel class="man

Young people who are more active growing up tend to end up with stronger bones, but many older teenagers don’t get enough exercise to see those benefits, a recent study found. The good news, researchers said, is that lots of physical activity during childhood seems to set up young adults for years of strong bones, even if they don’t exercise much during their teen years. “What parents do to make sure kids are active today matters down the road,” said Kathleen Janz, the study’s lead author from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “When you accumulate physical activity as a child, you end up with what looks like better bone as an adolescent,” she told Reuters Health. Participants in the research were part of the Iowa Bone Development Study, an ongoing study of bone health during childhood and young adulthood. The children had been recruited for that study between 1998 and 2002 when they were about five years old. At ages five, eight, 11, 13, 15 and 17 years old, the 530 part

An animal-rights group has called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fine the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because of a January incident in which a rabbit at a research lab died when it was left in its cage while it was sent for cleaning. _0"> The group, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, which opposes the use of animals in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> medical research , on its website called on people to contact USDA officials and seek a $10,000 fine. MIT said in a letter to the National Institutes of Health, which oversees the use of animals in scientific research, that the incident occurred in January, when an employee of the school was cleaning a cage that housed three rabbits. The employee removed two of the rabbits from the cage but failed to take out the third before putting the cage into a sanitizing machine. The employee, an 11-year-veteran of the school who was not identified, resigned later that month. "MIT deeply regrets that the acc

Shares of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Halozyme Therapeutics Inc jumped about 11 percent a day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted a hold on a trial testing an advanced version of the company's flagship drug delivery technology. _0"> The company said on Wednesday it would restart enrolling patients for the trial following the approval of an amended study design by an independent review boards. The regulator imposed the hold in April, after Halozyme voluntarily halted the mid-stage study over concerns of a possible difference in the rate of blood clots found in pancreatic cancer patients receiving Halozyme's treatment and those given approved cancer therapies. Halozyme said it had revised its study design to include another main goal, which will assess the rate of blood clots in patients receiving the therapy.   true       The trial is testing a more potent form of Halozyme's existing technology to deliver chemotherapy drugs intrave

Hog losses on U.S. farms from a deadly virus have slowed, reaching about 8 million head currently after hitting 7 million around February, an economist with a leading pork industry group told Reuters. Rising temperatures heading into the summer may be a factor, Paragon Economics President and National Pork Producers Council consultant Steve Meyer said at World Pork Expo 2014, as the virus tends to thrive under cold, damp conditions. There is still no official tally of the number of pig deaths from Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), which first appeared in the United States in April 2013 and has since swept through 30 states. The government has said it will make PEDv reportable, which means cases must be officially registered. Despite millions of dollars spent on research, no one knows how the virus entered the country, and there is no reliable vaccine. Meyer said the 7 million figure was when about 50 percent of the sows in the United States had been infected. "I had t