San Diego bankruptcy attorney Paul Staley has seen a lot of changes in the practice of bankruptcy law in the past twenty years. None has disturbed him more than the current "race to the bottom" where lawyers advertise unrealistically low bankruptcy legal fees and lure clients in only to discover they'll likely be paying a lot more - or getting a lot less than what they thought they had bargained for. San Diego bankruptcy attorney Paul Staley urges his fellow practitioners to join him in the fight to ensure consumers get world class representation in their San ...

Sound Physicians, a leading hospitalist organization focused on driving improvements in quality, satisfaction and financial performance of inpatient healthcare delivery, will be presenting at the Society of Hospital Medicine's 2013 Annual Meeting. Robert Bessler, M.D., CEO of Sound Physicians, will serve as an expert faculty member for SHM's new practice management pre-course, entitled, "What Keeps You Awake at Night? Hot Topics in Hospitalist Practice Management." The course will offer perspectives about best practices for delivering value in hospital medicine ...

Alligators may help scientists learn how to stimulate tooth regeneration in people, according to new research led by the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). For the first time, a global team of researchers led by USC pathology Professor Cheng-Ming Chuong, M.D., Ph.D., has uncovered unique cellular and molecular mechanisms behind tooth renewal in American alligators. Their study, titled "Specialized stem cell niche enables repetitive renewal of alligator teeth," appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official ...

Pregnant mothers' exposure to the flu was associated with a nearly fourfold increased risk that their child would develop bipolar disorder in adulthood, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings add to mounting evidence of possible shared underlying causes and illness processes with schizophrenia, which some studies have also linked to prenatal exposure to influenza. "Prospective mothers should take common sense preventive measures, such as getting flu shots prior to and in the early stages of pregnancy and avoiding contact with people who ...

New research has revealed that the evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought. Tetrapods, or four-legged animals, first stepped onto land about 395 million years ago. This significant change was made possible by strong hipbones and a connection through the spine via an ilium - features that were not present in the fish ancestors of tetrapods. In a study published in the journal Evolution and Development, Dr Catherine Boisvert of the Australian Regenerative Medicine ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Ana Sánchez and José Miguel Blanco, lecturers in the Department of Computer Languages and Systems of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country, together with Arturo Jaime and César Domínguez, lecturers in the Department of Mathematics and Computing at the University of La Rioja, have developed an experience between the two universities by systematically incorporating telecollaboration. The project has been developed in the ambit of two database subjects, one at each university, where the similitudes and differences ...

NEW YORK, May 14, 2013 – In a first-of-its-kind effort to illuminate the biochemical impact of trauma, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered a connection between the quantity of cannabinoid receptors in the human brain, known as CB1 receptors, and post-traumatic stress disorder, the chronic, disabling condition that can plague trauma victims with flashbacks, nightmares and emotional instability. Their findings, which appear online today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, will also be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Biological ...

An international team of scientists, including a University of York researcher, has carried out ground-breaking experiments to investigate the atomic structure of astatine (Z=85), the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth. Astatine (At) is of significant interest as its decay properties make it an ideal short-range radiation source for targeted alpha therapy in cancer treatment. The results of the project, which was conceived by Professor Andrei Andreyev, an Anniversary Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of York, and Dr Valentine Fedosseev, ...

Like small children, scientists are always asking the question 'why?'. One question they've yet to answer is why nature picked quantum physics, in all its weird glory, as a sensible way to behave. Researchers Corsin Pfister and Stephanie Wehner at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore tackle this perennial question in a paper published 14 May in Nature Communications. We know that things that follow quantum rules, such as atoms, electrons or the photons that make up light, are full of surprises. They can exist in more than one place ...

Northwestern University scientists have struck gold in the laboratory. They have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally benign method that uses simple cornstarch -- instead of cyanide -- to isolate gold from raw materials in a selective manner. This green method extracts gold from crude sources and leaves behind other metals that are often found mixed together with the crude gold. The new process also can be used to extract gold from consumer electronic waste. Current methods for gold recovery involve the use of highly poisonous cyanides, often leading to contamination ...

New Delhi, India—The Government of India's Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Bharat Biotech announced positive results from a Phase III clinical trial of a rotavirus vaccine developed and manufactured in India. Data from the trial, presented today at the International Symposium on Rotavirus Vaccines for India—The Evidence and the Promise, showed ROTAVAC® to have an excellent safety and efficacy profile. The clinical study demonstrates for the first time that the India-developed rotavirus vaccine ROTAVAC® is efficacious in preventing severe rotavirus diarrhoea in ...

Women whose breast cancer had been treated with chemotherapy demonstrated improved executive function, such as cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency and processing speed after using exercises developed by Lumosity, the leading online cognitive training program. The study also found significant improvement in self-reported measures of everyday executive function and observed some transfer to verbal memory. Researchers at Stanford University published the results in the peer-reviewed journal, Clinical Breast Cancer. Dr. Shelli Kesler, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and ...

WENATCHEE, Wash. – Washington State University researchers have found they can control one of fruit growers' more severe pests, aphids, with a remarkably benign tool: flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control. They found that plantings of sweet alyssum attracted a host of spiders and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids, a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays. "The results were striking," said Lessando Gontijo, ...

The results of a large-scale, analysis of BitTorrent file-sharing of computer games, focusing on using open methodologies are to be published in the International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication and bust some of the common myths about digital piracy. The controversy about illegal file sharing over the Internet has been a focus of intense attention from industry and media alike for the past decade. Despite the massive financial interests involved, there is, however, only limited factual knowledge available backing claims from either side of the controversy. Focusing ...

The Solanaceae, also called the potato or nightshade family, includes a wide range of flowering plants, some of which are important agricultural crops. Tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines, peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world. Solanum is the largest genus of the family, and with 1500 species, is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groups,or clades. This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid ...

Hardware and software vendors are foolish to ignore the needs of the growing population of older computer and information technology users, the so-called "silver surfers". US researchers offer convincing evidence in a monograph to be published in the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management that from the business perspective, seniors represent a rapidly growing sector of the market with the most disposable income to spend on these companies' products. Mark McMurtrey, Ronald McGaughey, James Downey and Steven Zeltmann of the Department of Management ...

Data from more than 180 research papers suggests fish oils could minimise the effects that junk food can have on the brain, a review by researchers at the University of Liverpool has shown. The team at the University's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease reviewed research from around the world to see whether there was sufficient data available to suggest that omega-3s had a role to play in aiding weight loss. Research over the past 10 years has indicated that high-fat diets could disrupt neurogenesis, a process that generates new nerve cells, but diets rich in omega-3s ...

This news release is available in German. In their role as condensation nuclei, aerosol particles are an important trigger for the formation of clouds. As humidity accumulates on the particles droplets are formed, which later develop into clouds. Within the clouds, however, the chemical composition of these aerosol particles changes. In order to find out exactly what happens within the clouds, Eliza Harris and Bärbel Sinha from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, together with other scientists form Mainz and further research institutes, investigated different ...

Although we know the tool's general purpose, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if a specific pair of precision tweezers belongs to a surgeon or a master jeweller. It is now easier to solve similar conundrums about a type of protein that allows cells to react to their environment, thanks to scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Published today in Science Signaling, their work offers a valuable resource for other researchers. Whether in your eye being hit by light, in your blood fighting off disease, or elsewhere throughout your body, cells ...

Limiting the amount of warming experienced by the world's oceans in the future could buy some time for tropical coral reefs, say researchers from the University of Bristol. The study, published by the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used computer models to investigate how shallow-water tropical coral reef habitats may respond to climate change over the coming decades. Elena Couce and colleagues found that restricting greenhouse warming to three watts per square metre (equivalent to just 50-100 parts per million carbon dioxide, or approximately half again the increase ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a software algorithm that detects and isolates cyber-attacks on networked control systems – which are used to coordinate transportation, power and other infrastructure across the United States. Networked control systems are essentially pathways that connect and coordinate activities between computers and physical devices. For example, the systems that connect temperature sensors, heating systems and user controls in modern buildings are networked control systems. But, on a much larger scale, these systems ...

A new species of green palm-pitviper of the genus Bothriechis is described from a seriously threatened cloud forest reserve in northern Honduras. Because of similarity in color pattern and scalation, the new species (Bothriechis guifarroi) was previously confused with other Honduran palm pitvipers. Genetic analysis revealed that the closest relatives of the new species are actually found over 600 km to the south, in the mountains of Costa Rica. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. The gorgeous new species was discovered by scientists during two ...

Nurses will use extreme measures to save their patients and parents; but if they were dying, they prefer less aggressive ones for themselves, according to results from an international survey on nurses' end-of-life preferences. The April issue of the International Nursing Review reported the findings about the end-of-life preferences of 1,089 nurses in the first multinational and cross-cultural view of nurses' end-of-life care choices. Two factors influenced the care of people dying: lack of knowledge about the patient's wishes and the call of duty, according to Joyce ...

Ever notice how a dried coffee stain has a thicker outer rim, while the middle of the stain remains almost unsoiled? This 'coffee ring effect' also occurs in other materials. Researchers from the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at KU Leuven have now discovered how to counteract coffee rings with 'surfactants', i.e. soap. The key to the discovery was not a kitchen towel, but a bacterium that counteracts the coffee ring effect at the microscopic level. The findings were published in a recent edition of the leading journal Nature Communications. When a ...

In a study published online today in Crop Science, scientists describe a nematode-resistant wheat. But while the wheat carries the resistance to the pest, the benefits are actually seen in the crop that is grown after it. Root-knot nematodes cause crop losses around the world, and they can be difficult to control. In order to reproduce, nematodes need to infect a living plant root. Once they are present in soil, they can survive winter in a fallow field and infect plants during the next growing season. Trap crops – unsuitable hosts that "trick" the nematodes into starting ...