In order to realize the full potential of advanced biofuels that are derived from non-food sources of lignocellulosic biomass—e.g., agricultural, forestry, and municipal waste, and crops such as poplar, switchgrass and miscanthus—new technologies that can efficiently and cost-effectively break down this biomass into simple sugars are required. Existing biomass pretreatment technologies are typically derived from the pulp and paper industry and rely on dilute acids and bases to break down the biomass. The treated biomass product is then exposed to biological catalysts, ...

National Trust has announced that a newly restored semi-tropical plant house, a bathing pool and a summerhouse mural are just some of the results of 10 years of hard work and GBP3.5 million investment at Hidcote Manor garden in Gloucestershire.   The National Trust has now officially completed a major phase of reinstating many of the key historic structures in this world-famous garden thanks to the support of an anonymous donor, who matched every pound raised by the Trust up to GBP1.6 million. Created by American-born horticulturalist Major Lawrence Johnston, Hidcote ...

Northwestern University researchers have provided new biological evidence suggesting that the brain works differently when memorizing the face of a person from one's own race than when memorizing a face from another race. Their study -- which used EEG recordings to measure brain activity -- sheds light on a well-documented phenomenon known as the "other-race effect." One of the most replicated psychology findings, the other-race effect finds that people are less likely to remember a face from a racial group different from their own. "Scientists have put forward numerous ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – As homes and cities expand closer to forests and wildlands across the American West, increasing wildfire threats have created an unlikely new phenomena – confidence in government. Recent studies show that people in neighborhoods adjacent to public forest lands can and do trust natural resource managers to a surprising degree, in part because the risks they face are so severe. Thousands of acres burn every year, threatening homes, lives and property, and in many groups and areas, the phrase "I'm from the government – trust me" is no longer being used ...

Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hotel group and member of Dubai Holding, has celebrated the victory of its global brands ambassador, golfer Rory Mcllory, in the US Open at the Congressional Country Club, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Rory McIlroy, 22, led the tournament from start to finish, a feat which had not been achieved since Tiger Woods in 2000. McIlroy finished with a score of 268 which is the lowest score in US Open history and a massive 16 under par. Executive chairman of Jumeirah Group, Gerald Lawless said: "Rory is truly an inspiration. Since his ...

Puntarenas, Costa Rica – New samples of rock and sediment from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean may help explain the cause of large, destructive earthquakes similar to the Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan in mid-March. Nearly 1500 meters (almost one mile) of core collected from the ocean floor near the coast of Costa Rica reveal detailed records of approximately 2 million years of tectonic activity along a seismic plate boundary. The samples were retrieved with the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution during the recent month-long Integrated Ocean ...

Debenhams has launched its lightest ever t-shirt bra, weighing in at just 48g, as the answer to the perfect everyday bra. Debenhams head of lingerie buying and design, Sharon Webb commented: "Many women find that the search for a bra that fits, flatters, is comfortable and functional, is as hard as finding the right man. "Our research showed that many traditional t-shirt bras were quite heavy due to their dense foam structure, which is required to give an invisible fit." Over 90% of women in wearer trials agreed that the bra felt like a second skin. Back ...

Panama City, Panama – Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 335 Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4 recently completed operations in Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1256D, a deep scientific borehole that extends more than 1500 meters below the seafloor into the Pacific Ocean's igneous crust – rocks that formed through the cooling and crystallization of magma, and form the basement of the ocean floor. An international team of scientists led by co-chief scientists Damon Teagle (National Oceanographic Center Southampton, University of Southampton in the UK) ...

Debenhams, the high street store, has revealed that super-sized beach towels, able to occupy extra room on crowded shores and sun loungers are soaring in popularity. Customers are using them to mark out more territory during holidays, providing a better defence against incursions from rival tourists fighting for space in the most popular resorts. The new towels are up to 65 per cent bigger than normal, and designed using distinctive, bold, bright colours, making it obvious that the space is already occupied, even when the owner isn't there. Debenhams spokeswoman, ...

Russell Investments has launched a new dedicated website specifically for retail financial advisers. The new online portal, available direct from the Russell Investments UK homepage, brings together the most relevant investment information from Russell's extensive range of detailed and unbiased industry analysis and allows financial advisers to cut through the noise to hone in on the topics which are important to them. Alongside this, advisers will be able to quickly navigate through Russell's tools and investment services which can help them get under the bonnet ...

Researchers from the Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU) at the University of Melbourne have collaborated with scientists from the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of Costa Rica, to develop new antivenom against the lethal Papuan taipan. The preclinical studies of this antivenom have been published in the international journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Around 750 people are bitten in PNG each year. PhD candidate David Williams from AVRU, who coordinated the project in PNG, said snakebite is a neglected public health problem compounded by antivenom ...

Prudential has announced that men retiring in 2011 expect to receive 50 per cent more pension income than women, according to new Prudential's Class of 2011 research. Prudential's Class of 2011 research surveyed people planning to retire this year and found that the retirement income gender gap is GBP6,500. The average woman retiring this year expects an annual income of GBP12,900 compared with an average expected male income of GBP19,400. There is some good news for women though as the retirement income gender gap has shrunk since last year when Prudential's study ...

The transcription of genes is tightly controlled, with a bewildering array of regulatory DNA sequences interacting with a similarly large number of proteins and other factors to determine which genes are active when and where. Understanding how it all works has challenged countless molecular biologists over the past decades but we are now starting to make significant progress. Even so, we have scarcely begun to understand how the entire complexity evolves to give differences in the size and shape of organisms. Exciting new findings are now reported by the group of David ...

elephant.co.uk has revealed that while many men like to think they are the superior gender when it comes to driving, new research from the car insurance specialist shows men have bigger crashes that cost more money than women. elephant.co.uk looked at more than 200,000 claims and found young men in particular have more expensive crashes. Accidents involving men aged under 25 cost on average 15% more than those involving women of the same age. In fact, the cost of accidents involving male drivers of all ages is 6% higher than accidents involving women. To help improve ...

Advances in DNA 'fingerprinting' and other genetic techniques led by Adelaide researchers are making it harder for illegal loggers to get away with destroying protected rainforests. DNA fingerprinting for timber products has grown in international recognition due to research led by the University of Adelaide that traces individual logs or wood products back to the forests where they came from. Professor Andrew Lowe, Director of the University's Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, and Dr Hugh Cross, Molecular Biologist at the State Herbarium ...

British Airways has announced the launch of two new routes to Faro and Malaga and added more frequency to the popular destinations of Nice, Palma and Ibiza. This means that British Airways now offers 39 leisure flights per week for this summer from London City Airport to top sun destinations at the height of the season. The four times a week flights to Faro and the three times a week flights to Malaga are now both in operation and will operate year round. The existing Nice service has been increased to double daily flights from May until September, and from July to ...

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found that children who watch adverts for unhealthy food on television are more likely to want to eat high-fat and high-sugar foods. The study by researchers in the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society examined the food preferences of a group of 281 children aged six to 13 years old from the North West of England. The children were shown an episode of a popular cartoon before being shown it again two weeks later. In each case, the cartoon was preceded by five minutes of commercials – one set showing toy adverts ...

When a cell divides, the genetic information in the chromosomes must be passed on error-free to the daughter cells. Researchers at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory in Tübingen are studying this process using fission yeast as a model organism. In cooperation with researchers at the University of Tübingen, they succeeded in attributing additional tasks to the Aurora enzymes, which were already recognized as important cellular tools for the reliable transmission of genetic information. Because uncontrolled cell division is a feature of tumours, Aurora enzyme inhibitors are ...

Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper declares that "after all their economy has gone through, Canada's entrepreneurs have consistently driven economic growth. Therefore, when Canadians celebrate their country and all its achievements, they can do the same to honor their entrepreneurs." There are a number of reasons to celebrate Canadian entrepreneurship. For one, small and medium-sized businesses contribute to Canada's ongoing economic success. Resilient and innovative Canadian entrepreneurs help create jobs, strengthen communities and encourage competitiveness. There ...

Upside Software Inc. announced it has been recognized as a leader amongst Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software providers in the report "The Forrester Wave: Contract Life-Cycle Management, Q2 2011" Forrester Research, Inc., June 2011. Vendors were evaluated on 113 criteria that examined each step of the contract life cycle and measured how each vendor performed against key determining factors. The report states "Upside Software provides an all-around excellent solution. Upside Software had the highest overall score in the evaluation with deep functionality ...

Researchers from the Institute of Food Research and The Genome Analysis Centre have published the genome sequence of a gut bacterium, to help understand how these organisms evolved their symbiotic relationships with their hosts. The relationship between gut bacteria and the gastrointestinal tract is one of IFR's main research areas. Key to understanding the role of bacteria in establishing and maintaining gut health is knowledge of how the very close relationship between the bacteria and their hosts has evolved to be mutually beneficial to both. One bacterial species, ...

Bethesda, MD—Adult stem cells and progenitor cells may not come with a clean genetic slate after all. That's because a new report in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) shows that adult stem or progenitor cells have their own unique "epigenetic signatures," which change once a cell differentiates. This is important because epigenetic changes do not affect the actual make up in a cell's DNA, but rather, how that DNA functions. Epigenetic changes have been shown to play a role in a wide range of diseases, including obesity, and have been shown to be heritable from mother ...

For the third straight year, MARK SYSTEMS has been named as one of the most influential technology providers in the residential construction marketplace. Mark Systems was included as one of the Constructech 50, the third year in a row that the Constructech Magazine has selected the company. Companies are judged on a variety of criteria , including having a strong product/service aimed at the construction industry, ongoing customer satisfaction and growth, as well as outreach and educational efforts for the construction industry, among others. According to the editors ...

Bethesda, MD—If you think nicotine receptors are only important to smokers trying to kick the tobacco habit, think again. New research published in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that these receptors also play an important role in social interaction and the ability to choose between competing motivations. Specifically, scientists from France show that the nicotinic receptors in the prefrontal cortex are essential for social interaction in mice and that this area of the brain is necessary for adapted and balanced social interactions to occur. This new ...

High frequency non-ionizing radiation, emitted by mobile phones, is redundantly matter of discussions. The effects of high frequency electromagnetic fields (HEFs) derived from mobile phones have been discussed since the 1950's. Neuroscientists from Bochum were now able to elucidate this question. For the first time, they provide proof that extremely high-powered electromagnetic fields (EMFs) indeed influence learning processes on the synaptic level within the brain, independent from other factors like stress. "For this effect, very high values are necessary. These do not ...