The Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund (AOSF) has opened its 2014-2015 School Year Application Season. AOSF is a new scholarship organization formed to help implement Alabama's new law, the Alabama Accountability Act. The AOSF gives K-12 scholarships to children currently enrolled in a public school deemed "failing" by the Alabama Department of Education. These scholarship funds can be used to offset costs associated with transferring to a non-failing public or private school. Scholarships are also available after September 15 for income eligible students who are ...

The Crimson Label a top retailer of premium virgin human hair extensions opens for business. The Crimson Label's human hair extension line features unprocessed virgin human hair. Our hair is all natural with intact cuticles that align in the same direction. Intact cuticles result in tangle free and shed resistant product that blends seamlessly with natural hair. We offer 100% Virgin Indian, Brazilian, Malaysian, Peruvian, Eurasian and Russian Hair in Straight, Body Wave, Deep Wave, Afro Curl, Kinky Curl, Loose Wave, and Water Wave textures. The Crimson Label's product ...

Narrated by fictional homo-hip-hop superstars T-Bag and Feminem, BASH'd! A Gay Rap Opera is told almost entirely through rap, championing equal marriage and the global LGBTQ community, whilst turning the often-homophobic musical genre on its head and returning it to its social action roots. The original Cast Recording of the GLAAD Media Award winning Off-Broadway musical, BASH'D! A GAY RAP OPERA is now available to download (name your price)! http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Original-Cast-Recording-of-Off-Broadway-Musical-BASHD-A-GAY-RAP-OPERA-Available-Now-20140318 Written ...

Downtown Los Angeles is one of the top three hubs for the internet in the world. One of best locations in the world in a business where location means everything, as closer you are to a few major hubs faster people are able to connect to the computers at that datacenter. Yet Los Angeles data centers are among the least energy efficient. However, one Young Downtown Los Angeles Entrepreneur Jonathan Goodman President of Corporate Colocation fought the trend and built the data center of the future in Downtown Los Angeles. Did you ever think about how much electricity ...

Canna Products USA (CP USA), global manufacturers and distributors of industrial hemp, will work with America's industrial hemp farmers to legally grow and manufacture domestic hemp crops for its Tommy Chong, Yellow Emperor and Bluegrass Natural food, cosmetic and herbal hemp-product lines. "We currently import 100% of our oil because federal laws have previously prohibited domestic hemp farming," says Bluegrass Natural Remedies CEO Adam Benge. "Since industrial hemp can now be legally grown in the U.S., we have an industry that will create well-paid employment together ...

Score72 LLC is excited to announce the launch of www.score72.com. Score72 scours tons of websites and local businesses for the best deals on tee times, lessons, apparel, equipment, resorts, things to do after golf, and more. "To find smart recommendations, we search and filter deals from a growing list of the best daily deal websites, golf equipment websites, auction websites, local golf courses and businesses, PGA teaching professionals, and more. We find the best discounts and savings on tee times, lessons, driving ranges, apparel, equipment, resorts, and things to ...

PHILADELPHIA (Mar. 25, 2014)— "As soon as those two halves came together, like puzzle pieces, you knew it," said Ted Daeschler, PhD, associate curator of vertebrate zoology and vice president for collections at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. That surprising puzzle assembly occurred in the fall of 2012, when Jason Schein, assistant curator of natural history at the New Jersey State Museum, visited the Academy's research collections to better identify and describe a recently-unearthed fossil. The discovery linked scientists from both museums to their ...

Contrary to popular belief among recreational drug users, mephedrone has several important differences when compared with MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. These differences mean that mephedrone could leave a user with acute withdrawal symptoms and indicate that it may have a higher potential for developing dependence than MDMA according to a study published in British Journal of Pharmacology. "Although users report that mephedrone produces similar psychoactive effects to MDMA, these two drugs produce different changes in the brain and the adverse effects they produce, ...

ANN ARBOR—A mentally demanding job may stress you out today but can provide important benefits after you retire, according to a new study. "Based on data spanning 18 years, our study suggests that certain kinds of challenging jobs have the potential to enhance and protect workers' mental functioning in later life," said Gwenith Fisher, a faculty associate at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and assistant professor of psychology at Colorado State University. The research analyzed data on 4,182 participants in the U-M Health and Retirement Study, ...

How does the Arctic tern (a sea bird) fly more than 80,000 miles in its roundtrip North Pole-to-South Pole migration? How does the Emperor penguin incubate eggs for months during the Antarctic winter without eating? How does the Rufous hummingbird, which weighs less than a nickel, migrate from British Columbia to Mexico? These physiological gymnastics would usually be influenced by leptin, the hormone that regulates body fat storage, metabolism and appetite. However, leptin has gone missing in birds - until now. University of Akron researchers have discovered leptin ...

Research from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation reveals a new complexity to nerve cells in the brain that could affect future therapies aimed at altering mood and memory in humans. OMRF scientist Kenneth Miller, Ph.D., studied the function of a common protein (known as CaM Kinase II) in tiny roundworms called C. elegans. His research appears in the latest issue of the journal Genetics. "CaM Kinase II is very abundant in the brain, so it has been heavily studied," Miller said. "But this is the first time anybody has seen results like this." Using a method ...

VIDEO: Using spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) techniques developed by Gabriel Popescu, director of the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, researchers were able... Click here for more information. A new technique, developed by researchers in the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, provides a method to noninvasively measure human neural networks in ...

AMES, Iowa – Children who repeatedly play violent video games are learning thought patterns that will stick with them and influence behaviors as they grow older, according to a new study by Iowa State University researchers. The effect is the same regardless of age, gender or culture. Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study published in JAMA Pediatrics, says it is really no different than learning math or to play the piano. "If you practice over and over, you have that knowledge in your head. The fact that you haven't played ...

The week before open enrollment closes for new health care exchanges, a study by researchers at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research shows that those who might potentially benefit the most from the Affordable Care Act — including those earning near the Federal Poverty Level — are also the most clueless about health care policies. The opening of health care exchanges last year was roiled in controversy over technical glitches. Obamacare has since enrolled more than 5 million people, according ...

March 24, 2014 -- Online sexual hook-ups present a unique opportunity to explore many factors of decision-making that inform sexual health. A study conducted by Eric Schrimshaw, PhD, at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Martin J. Downing, Jr., PhD, of the National Development and Research Institutes, found evidence that men having sex with men use the Internet to find sexual partners who do not identify as gay, either to fulfill a fantasy or because it allows anonymous sexual encounters without discovery. The findings are online in the journal, ...

Family caregivers show an increase in the beneficial stress hormone DHEA-S on days when they use an adult day care service for their relatives with dementia, according to researchers at Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin. DHEA-S controls the harmful effects of cortisol and is associated with better long-term health. "This is one of the first studies to show that DHEA-S can be modified by an intervention, which in our case, was the use of an adult day care service," said Steven Zarit, Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Penn ...

Computer chips have stopped getting faster: The regular performance improvements we've come to expect are now the result of chipmakers' adding more cores, or processing units, to their chips, rather than increasing their clock speed. In theory, doubling the number of cores doubles the chip's efficiency, but splitting up computations so that they run efficiently in parallel isn't easy. On the other hand, say a trio of computer scientists from MIT, Israel's Technion, and Microsoft Research, neither is it as hard as had been feared. Commercial software developers writing ...

You must use a microscope to spot the new helpers that can assist in biological soil clean-up (bioremediation). They are small, mobile microorganisms, such as the unicellular slipper-shaped ciliates that can be found in stale water in a flower vase, where they feed on bacteria. New results from Aarhus University indicate that such mobile microorganisms can play a surprising key role in bioremediation of soil which is contaminated with so-called PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons). PAH are toxic tar substances formed during incomplete combustion in, for example, car ...

An international team led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed a new technique for identifying gene enhancers - sequences of DNA that act to amplify the expression of a specific gene – in the genomes of humans and other mammals. Called SIF-seq, for site-specific integration fluorescence-activated cell sorting followed by sequencing, this new technique complements existing genomic tools, such as ChIP-seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing), and offers some additional benefits. "While ChIP-seq is very ...

Smokers and those who have quit cannot fully appreciate the full flavor of a cup of coffee, because many cannot taste the bitterness of their regular caffeine kick. This is the finding of a study led by Nelly Jacob of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital APHP in France, published in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception. It is already known that smoking, and especially the toxic chemicals in tobacco, causes a loss of taste among smokers. It also causes structural changes to the fungiform papillae of the tongue where the taste buds are located. However, it is not yet known ...

This news release is available in Spanish. A research study, participated in by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), has discovered that nanometric-size foam structures follow the same universal laws as does soap lather: small bubbles disappear in favor of the larger ones. The scientific team, made up of researchers from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council) - CSIC, the Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid- UPCO, and UC3M, reached this conclusion after producing and characterizing nanofoam formed by ion ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Recently physicists have been poking holes again in Stephen Hawking's black hole theory – including Hawking himself. For decades physicists across the globe have been trying to figure out the mysteries of black holes – those fascinating monstrous entities that have such intense gravitational pull that nothing – not even light – can escape from them. Now Professor Chris Adami, Michigan State University, has jumped into the fray. The debate about the behavior of black holes, which has been ongoing since 1975, was reignited when Hawking posted a ...

Many physicians are adopting patient portals in response to governmental incentives for meaningful use (MU), but the stage 2 requirements for portal use may be particularly challenging for newer electronic health record (EHR) users. This study examines enrollment, use based on MU requirements, and satisfaction in a recently-adopting fee-for-service multispecialty system. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) financial incentives for meaningful use (MU)1 likely will persuade many reluctant doctors to adopt electronic health records (EHRs). However, there are ...

ATLANTA--Counties that change their delivery of public assistance benefits from paper checks to an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system – using debit cards – see their street crimes drop significantly, according to a study published today by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Titled "Less Cash, Less Crime: Evidence from the Electronic Benefit Transfer Program," the study is the first to empirically examine whether the introduction of an EBT system, which reduces the amount of cash circulated on the streets, will disrupt criminal activities that rely on the ...

The female breast contains a unique population of microbes relative to the rest of the body, according to the first-ever study of the breast microbiome. That study sought to lay the groundwork for understanding how this bacterial community contributes to health and disease, says first author Camilla Urbaniak, a PhD student at the University of Western Ontario. The research was published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "Proteobacteria was the dominant phylum in healthy breast tissue," says Urbaniak, noting that it is found only in small proportions ...