Squire Boone Caverns has just launched two new outdoor adventures for visitors to southern Indiana's Harrison County. A brand new high-flying zipline canopy tour takes visitors soaring above the caverns on six nonstop tree-to-tree ziplines and a swinging suspension bridge. Squire Boone Caverns Zipline Adventure is open daily April 1 through November 15, with various tours offered each day. Tours are $59 for visitors age seven and up, with discounts for groups of 10 or more. Reservations and complete information are available at www.squireboonecavernsziplines.com or (812) ...

The Agile PrepCast is released today and is aimed towards helping those who have the goal of obtaining their PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification. The certification is offered by The Project Management Institute (PMI). The Agile PrepCast at http://www.agileprepcast.com is a high-quality low-cost PMI-ACP Exam Prep Video Workshop that you download to your smart phone, tablet, laptop, or other media device to allow for easy access even when you are on the go. Developed by project management expert Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM, The Agile PrepCast reduces ...

This is one of those books that I was initially quite confused about. Before I offer my own opinions, here's the summary of the book, courtesy of Amazon.com: Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny ...

Millions of gardeners are planning their flower gardens this spring and part of their outdoor decor plan will most certainly include a hanging basket for their porch or free-standing hanging basket stands. In the past, the selection for lining their baskets would have been a coco liner. That selection of hanging basket liners has now been widened with the launch of the new EcoLiner. Many gardeners enjoy the look of their coco lined hanging baskets but discover throughout the season that coco liners do not retain water well and therefore their plants dry out easily. Coco ...

Dr. Helen Gelly of HyperbaRXs in Marietta, Georgia and Dr. David Schwegman from Hyperbaric Physicians of Georgia announced today they would join the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund's (GGAF) medical program that provides millions of dollars in donated medical care and treatment to retired NFL players in dire need. Gridiron Greats is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose purpose is to provide financial aid and medical assistance to former NFL players and their families. GGAF's medical program is a humanitarian initiative and intended to provide a wide variety ...

Drinking coffee could decrease the risk of breast cancer recurring in patients taking the widely used drug Tamoxifen, a study at Lund University in Sweden has found. Patients who took the pill, along with two or more cups of coffee daily, reported less than half the rate of cancer recurrence, compared with their non-coffee drinking, Tamoxifen-taking counterparts. The team followed over 600 breast cancer patients from southern Sweden for an average of five years. Approximately 300 took Tamoxifen. The drug, a common hormone therapy after breast cancer surgery, reduces the ...

Early, substantive dialogue between parents and their grade-school age children about the ills of tobacco and alcohol use can be more powerful in shaping teen behavior than advertising, marketing or peer pressure, a University of Texas at Arlington marketing researcher has shown. The findings of Zhiyong Yang, an associate professor of marketing in the UT Arlington College of Business, are published in a recent edition of the Journal of Business Research. Similar findings were part of a 2010 study he published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing of the American ...

The European Union cannot meet its goals in agricultural policy without embracing genetically engineered crops (GMOs). That's the conclusion of scientists who write in Trends in Plant Science, a Cell Press publication, based on case studies showing that the EU is undermining its own competitiveness in the agricultural sector to its own detriment and that of its humanitarian activities in the developing world. "Failing such a change, ultimately the EU will become almost entirely dependent on the outside world for food and feed and scientific progress, ironically because ...

In many places around the world, people are living longer and are having fewer children. But that's not all. A study of people living in rural Gambia, published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 25, shows that this modern-day "demographic transition" may lead women to be taller and slimmer, too. "This is a reminder that declines in mortality rates do not necessarily mean that evolution stops, but that it changes," says Ian Rickard of Durham University in the United Kingdom. Rickard and Alexandre Courtiol of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife ...

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting more than five million Americans, but currently there is no way to prevent, delay or stop its progression. A study published online April 25 by the Cell Press journal Neuron shows that a gene called CD33 contributes to Alzheimer's disease by inhibiting the ability of immune cells to remove toxic molecules in the brain. The findings provide new insights into the molecular causes of the disease and reveal a novel potential therapy that could prevent cognitive decline and brain damage at early stages. "Before ...

Most information about the cause of Alzheimer's disease is based on studies from animal models. Now, a study published by Cell Press on April 25th in the journal Cell examines the brain tissue of deceased human patients and sheds light on dysfunctions in molecular networks in the brain that are at the root of Alzheimer's disease. By showing that the TYROBP gene plays a key role in disrupting immune system pathways in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, the study reveals a potential therapeutic target for preventing brain damage caused by this debilitating disease. "Our ...

Cambridge, MA, April 25, 2013 --- Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans. The researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. The work was published today by the journal Cell as an early on-line release. It is scheduled for the May 9 print edition of the journal. The hormone, called betatrophin, causes mice to produce insulin-secreting ...

Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with researchers from Icelandic Heart Association, Sage Bionetworks, and other institutions, have discovered that a network of genes involved in the inflammatory response in the brain is a crucial mechanism driving Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (LOAD). The findings, published online today in the journal Cell, provide new understanding of key pathways and genes involved in LOAD and valuable insights to develop potential therapies for the disease. To date, scientists have been challenged in ...

When galaxies form new stars, they sometimes do so in frantic episodes of activity known as starbursts. These events were commonplace in the early Universe, but are rarer in nearby galaxies. During these bursts, hundreds of millions of stars are born, and their combined effect can drive a powerful wind that travels out of the galaxy. These winds were known to affect their host galaxy -- but this new research now shows that they have a significantly greater effect than previously thought. An international team of astronomers observed 20 nearby galaxies, some of which ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have determined that one of the recently identified genes contributing to the risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease regulates the clearance of the toxic amyloid beta (A-beta) protein that accumulates in the brains of patients with the disease. In their report receiving advance online publication in Neuron, the researchers describe a protective variant of the CD33 gene that promotes clearance of A-beta from the brain. They also show that reducing expression of CD33 in immune cells called microglia enhances their ability ...

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered a potential strategy for developing treatments to stem the disease process in Alzheimer's disease. It's based on unclogging removal of toxic debris that accumulates in patients' brains, by blocking activity of a little-known regulator protein called CD33. "Too much CD33 activity appears to promote late-onset Alzheimer's by preventing support cells from clearing out toxic plaques, key risk factors for the disease," explained Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, ...

Cancer is typically thought to develop after genes gradually mutate over time, finally overwhelming the ability of a cell to control growth. But a new closer look at genomes in prostate cancer by an international team of researchers reveals that, in fact, genetic mutations occur in abrupt, periodic bursts, causing complex, large scale reshuffling of DNA driving the development of prostate cancer. In the April 25 issue of Cell, the scientists, led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of ...

A collaboration of plant and soil scientists from across the UK has shown a grass hybrid species could help reduce the impact of flooding. The BBSRC-funded scientists, from Rothamsted Research, the James Hutton Institute, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University, Lancaster University and the University of Nottingham, used a hybridised species of grass called perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) with a closely related species called meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis). They hoped to integrate the rapid establishment ...

Blocking certain enzymes in the cell may prevent cancer cell division and growth, according to new findings from researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The discovery is published in the April 25, 2013 issue of the journal Molecular Cell. In order to divide, a cell needs to create copies of its genetic material to provide to the new cells, called the "daughter" cells. Several enzymes in the cells, called cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs), act as the traffic cops for this process, making sure that DNA is ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands,Thursday 25 April 2013: Probiotics could emerge as a treatment plan to manage hepatic encephalopathy (HE) therapy after a new study announced at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 found they significantly reduced development of the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease. The study analysed the efficacy of probiotics in preventing the development of HE in 160 cirrhotic patients over a period of approximately nine months and found significant improvements in reducing patients' arterial ammonia levels after three months of treatment with probiotics. ...

Researchers at Wake Forest University's Organic Electronics group have come up with a novel solution to one of the biggest technological barriers facing the organic semiconductor industry today. Oana Jurchescu, an assistant professor of physics, and a team of researchers developed a high performance organic semiconductor 'spray paint' that can be applied to large surface areas without losing electric conductivity. This is a potentially game changing technology for a number of reasons. Organic thin film transistors are currently deposited by one of three methods. Drop ...

Like musicians in an orchestra who have the same musical score but start and finish playing at different intervals, cells with the same genes start and finish transcribing them at different points in the genome. For the first time, researchers at EMBL have described the striking diversity of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that such start and end variation produces, even from the simple genome of yeast cells. Their findings, published today in Nature, shed new light on the importance of mRNA boundaries in determining the functional potential of genes. Hundreds of thousands of ...

Stenamma is a cryptic "leaf-litter" ant genus that occurs in moderately humid to wet forest habitats throughout the Holarctic region, Central America, and part of northwestern South America (Colombia and Ecuador). The genus was thought to be restricted primarily to the temperate zone, but recent collecting efforts have uncovered a large variety of Neotropical forms, which rival the Holarctic species in terms of morphological and behavioral diversity. The Middle American clade of Stenamma is revised in a paper published in the open access journal ZooKeys to recognize 40 ...

An international research consortium led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the CIBERER and the University of Wurzburg (Germany) has discovered a gene that can cause three totally different diseases, depending on how it is altered. The researchers, using next-generation massive ultrasequencing techniques, have sequenced the over 20,000 genes of a Fanconi anaemia patient's genome. By adopting this strategy they have succeeded in identifying pathogenic mutations responsible for this disease in the ERCC4 gene, which had already been linked to two other rare ...

Metabolic disorders, such as excess abdominal fat, raised blood pressure, higher levels of insulin, glucose and triglycerides and lower levels of the beneficial HDL cholesterol can be found in children as young as 6 to 8 years of age, according to a study carried out at the University of Eastern Finland. These metabolic risk factors often accumulate in overweight children and, in the newly published study, this accumulation was linked with mild artery wall stiffness. Of single disorders, higher levels of insulin, triglyceride and blood pressure were associated with artery ...