WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new vaccine to prevent rotavirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea in infants and children.

The drug Rotarix is the second oral vaccine against the rotavirus licensed in the United States, the agency said Thursday in a release. Rotarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, is given in a two-dose series to infants from 6 to 24 weeks of age.

Rotavirus causes about 2.7 million cases of gastroenteritis in the United States each year, with as many as 70,000 of those cases requiring hospitalization and between 20 and 60 deaths attributed to the virus. The FDA said that without vaccination, nearly every child in the United States would likely be infected at least once with rotavirus by age 5.

"This vaccine provides another option to combat and reduce a potentially severe illness that affects so many children," Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, director of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

In 1999, a different rotavirus vaccine was voluntarily withdrawn from the U.S. market because of an association with an increased risk of intussusception, the agency said.

U.N. meteorologist predicts cooler summer

LONDON, April 4 (UPI) -- A U.N. meteorologist says the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific will likely mean slightly lower temperatures across the world this year.

World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would reduce temperatures by a fraction of a degree.

The effects of La Nina and El Nino in the Pacific resonate round the world. While El Nino warms the planet, La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina current that has contributed to heavy rain in Australia and record low temperatures in parts of China, the BBC said Friday.

Jarraud, however, said temperatures this year will still be well above the average. "When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming."

Study: Pesticides found in wine

PARIS, April 4 (UPI) -- A European environmental group said pesticides used on grapes were found in 35 of the 40 bottles of wine they tested.

Pesticide Action Network Europe, working with groups on Austria, France and Germany, said a study found pesticides in all the conventional wines, and a low level of pesticide residues in one of six organic wines. The analysis revealed 24 different pesticide contaminants in the wines.

On average, each wine sample contained more than four pesticides, although one bottle had 10.

"The presence of pesticides in European wines is a growing problem," Elliott Cannell of PAN Europe said in a statement. "Many grape farmers are abandoning traditional methods of pest control in favor of using hazardous synthetic pesticides."

Aztec arithmetic system discovered

JANESVILLE, Wis., April 4 (UPI) -- A study by U.S. and Mexican researchers has found evidence of an ancient method of arithmetic in Aztec property records.

Barbara Williams of the University of Wisconsin-Rock County and Maria del Carmen Jorge y Jorge of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico studied more than 2,000 drawings dating back to 1540 that were used to document agricultural properties by the Acolhua people who lived in the city-state of Tepetlaoztoc, the University of Wisconsin said Thursday in a release.

A report, published in the journal Science, said the Aztecs figured out the area of a land parcel using a basic unit of distance measurement and smaller units shown by drawings of hands, hearts and arrows.

"What we found that was surprising, was how accurate the Aztec surveyors were from a mathematical perspective," Williams said.

The system, which the researchers termed as "Acolhua Congruence Arithmetic" appears to fit with what else is known of the Aztecs, such as how they calculated their calendar, the report said.