It may only be April, but budding Santas of all ages and abilities are being invited to start training for a fun run in aid of Helen & Douglas House Hospice in Oxford. The 2 mile 2013 Santas On The Run Race in Oxford takes place on Sunday 15 December and budding santas can run, jog or walk through the streets of Oxford City in order to raise vital funds for the children's hospice. Santas On The Run is a series of fun runs which sees national charity Children's Hospices UK and children's hospices throughout the country working together to raise awareness and vital ...

Women retiring this year expect their annual retirement incomes to be more than a third (36 per cent) lower than men's, adding up to a pension gender gap of GBP6,500, according to new research from Prudential. This year's "Class of 2013" research, the latest in a series of annual studies conducted by Prudential since 2008, tracks the plans and expectations of people entering retirement this year. The report found that women retiring in 2013 expect average incomes of GBP11,750 per year, compared with GBP18,250 for men. The study shows that the gender gap ...

The news follows last week's announcement that the firm is launching a six-month strategic review of its global business model, in which it will analyse ongoing client and regulatory trends, to further enhance its market-leading position. The deVere Group's chief executive, Nigel Green, says: "The European marketplace, in terms of taxation and regulation, is changing and we're committed to evolving with it in order to consistently achieve the results-driven service our clients rightly expect from the deVere Group. "As such, we're to strategically expand ...

Freshwater dolphins use echolocation signals that are quieter, more low-pitched and more frequent than those used by their marine counterparts, according to research published March 27 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Frants Havmand Jensen from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and colleagues. All toothed whales use bio-sonar signals to navigate and find prey, but the echolocation signals of marine animals are better understood than those used by endangered river dolphins. In this study, the authors recorded the signals of two endangered freshwater dolphin species ...

Non-invasive 'liquid biopsies' can find metastatic or recurrent prostate cancer, in a low cost assay suitable for most healthcare systems, finds research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Medicine. Genomic signatures of prostate cancer, isolated from plasma DNA, display abnormal copy numbers of specific areas of chromosomes. It is even possible to separate out patients who develop resistance against hormone deprivation therapy, which is the most common form of treatment in men with metastatic prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer ...

Healthy cells don't just happen. As they grow and divide, they need checks and balances to ensure they function properly while adapting to changing conditions around them. Researchers studying a set of proteins that regulate physiology, caloric restriction and aging have discovered another important role that one of them plays. SIRT4, one of seven sirtuin proteins, is known for controlling fuel usage from its post in the mitochondria, the cell's energy source. It responds to stressful changes in the availability of nutrients for the cell. New research reveals that SIRT4 ...

PHILADELPHIA – In 2009, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) halted reimbursement for so-called "virtual colonoscopy" for routine colon-cancer screening in asymptomatic patients, in part due to concerns over how this procedure, computed tomography colonography (CTC), was being used in the elderly population. In the first study to examine appropriate utilization of the test among asymptomatic Medicare beneficiaries from 2007 to 2008, a research team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that CTC was used appropriately ...

Can events like Red Fridays, Tickets for Troops and the yellow ribbon campaign reduce the chances of Canadian soldiers experiencing combat-related stress disorders? The authors of a new study from the University of Alberta think so. David Webber, a PhD student in the U of A's Department of Psychology, and his supervisor Jeff Schimel recently published a paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, positing that the level of public support for a war could influence the level of mental distress combatants feel when they arrive home, potentially leading to a heightened ...

(Phoenix, AZ April 4, 2013) -- Brain researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute have discovered that we explore the world with our eyes in a different way than previously thought. Their results advance our understanding of how healthy observers and neurological patients interact and glean critical information from the world around them. The research team was led by Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde, Director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at Barrow, in collaboration with fellow Barrow Neurological Institute researchers Jorge Otero-Millan, Rachel Langston, and Dr. ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Residents of states with the highest rates of gun ownership and political conservatism are at greater risk of suicide than those in states with less gun ownership and less politically conservative leanings, according to a study by University of California, Riverside sociology professor Augustine J. Kposowa. The study, "Association of suicide rates, gun ownership, conservatism and individual suicide risk," was published online in the journal Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology in February. Suicide was the 11th leading cause of death for all ...

Remote reefs can be tougher than they look Western Australia's Scott Reef has recovered from mass bleaching in 1998. Isolated coral reefs can recover from catastrophic damage as effectively as those with nearby undisturbed neighbours, a long-term study by marine biologists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) has shown. Scott Reef, a remote coral system in the Indian Ocean, has largely recovered from a catastrophic mass bleaching event in 1998, according to the study published in Science ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., April 4, 2013 – A Spectrum Health clinical trial has found that fecal microbial transplantation (FMT) has resulted in the improvement or absence of symptoms in most pediatric patients with active ulcerative colitis. The phase I clinical trial of the procedure was conducted by members of the Pediatric Specialty Department of the Spectrum Health Medical Group at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, the first in the country to study FMT in children. FMT is a process that involves infusion of human stool from a healthy donor into the intestine of the patient ...

Washington, D.C. – (April 5, 2013) — A person's skin and a fruit fly's exoskeleton, called a "cuticle" may not look alike, but both coverings protect against injury, infection, and dehydration. The top layers of mammalian skin and insect cuticle are mesh-works of macromolecules, the mammal version consisting mostly of keratin proteins and the fly version predominantly of the carbohydrate chitin. Yet the requirement of an outer boundary for protection is so ancient that the outermost cells of both organisms respond to some of the same signals. And because of these signaling ...

The first-in-human study of the NeuroBlate™ Thermal Therapy System finds that it appears to provide a new, safe and minimally invasive procedure for treating recurrent glioblastoma (GBM), a malignant type of brain tumor. The study, which appears April 5 in the Journal of Neurosurgery online, was written by lead author Andrew Sloan, MD, Director of Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, who also served as co-Principal Investigator, as well as Principal Investigator Gene Barnett, MD, Director ...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have made a discovery in neuroscience that could offer a long-lasting solution to eating disorders such as obesity. It was previously thought that the nerve cells in the brain associated with appetite regulation were generated entirely during an embryo's development in the womb and therefore their numbers were fixed for life. But research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience has identified a population of stem cells capable of generating new appetite-regulating neurons in the brains of young and adult rodents. Obesity ...

A research team led by Professor Makoto Fujita of the University of Tokyo, Japan, and complemented by Academy Professor Kari Rissanen of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, has made a fundamental breakthrough in single-crystal X-ray analysis, the most powerful method for molecular structure determination. The team's breakthrough was reported in Nature on 28 March 2013 (published online 27 March 2013). X-ray single-crystal diffraction (SCD) analysis has the intrinsic limitation that the target molecule must be obtained as single crystals. Now, Professor Fujita's team ...

Researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) and the Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology (FMP) in Berlin-Buch, Germany, have now detected a substance that can prevent the accumulation of fluid in body tissue and thus edema formation. The results of Dr. Jana Bogum (MDC/FMP) from the MDC research group led by Professor Walter Rosenthal and PD Dr. Enno Klußmann could be important in the future for the treatment of excessive fluid retention in patients with chronic heart failure. Using a novel approach, the researchers have also discovered a new ...

A study led by Dr Akash Sinha has shown that muscle function improves with Vitamin D supplements which are thought to enhance the activity of the mitochondria, the batteries of the cell. A hormone normally produced in the skin using energy from sunlight, Vitamin D can also be found in a few foods – including fish, fish liver oils, egg yolks and fortified cereals but it can also be effectively boosted with Vitamin D supplements. It is thought around 60% of people in the UK are vitamin D deficient, with children under five, people with dark skin and the elderly being ...

HOUSTON -- (April 5, 2013) -- Rice University physicists on the hunt for the origins of high-temperature superconductivity have published new findings this week about a material that becomes "schizophrenic" -- simultaneously exhibiting the characteristics of both a metallic conductor and an insulator. In a theoretical analysis this week in Physical Review Letters (PRL), Rice physicists Qimiao Si and Rong Yu offer an explanation for a strange series of observations described earlier this year by researchers at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, Calif. ...

Scientists have shed light on a common bleeding disorder by growing and analysing stem cells from patients' blood to discover the cause of the disease in individual patients. The technique may enable doctors to prescribe more effective treatments according to the defects identified in patients' cells. In future, this approach could go much further: these same cells could be grown, manipulated, and applied as treatments for diseases of the heart, blood and circulation, including heart attacks and haemophilia. The study focused on von Willebrand disease (vWD), which ...

This press release is available in German. For animals, prevailing in a fight affects their likelihood of winning future conflicts. The opposite is true of losing a fight. The sex hormone testosterone is often believed to mediate this "winner effect". Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen have examined whether the presence of an audience influences the behaviour and the testosterone changes of Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) after a fight. The evidence shows that both winners and losers exhibit raised testosterone levels after a ...

Amsterdam, NL, April 5, 2013 – Each year more than three million Americans are living with traumatic brain injury (TBI), a condition that is associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional problems that often affect their sexuality, and subsequently their marital stability, identity, and self-esteem. Taking an in-depth look at the impact of TBI on sexuality, an investigative team critically reviews fourteen studies representing a collective study sample of nearly 1,500 patients, partners, spouses, control individuals, and rehabilitation professionals to examine brain ...

The Djehuty Project, led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has discovered on the hill of Dra Abu el-Naga in Luxor (ancient Thebes), the burials of four personages belonging to the elite of the 17th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, who lived about 3.550 years ago. These findings, discovered during the 12th campaign of archeological excavations of the project, shed light on a little-known historical period in which Thebes becomes the capital of the kingdom and the empire's foundations become established with the dominance of Egypt over Palestine and Syria to the ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- The cost of complying with tougher EPA air-quality standards could spur an increased shift away from coal and toward natural gas for electricity generation, according to a new Duke University study. The stricter regulations on sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and mercury may make nearly two-thirds of the nation's coal-fired power plants as expensive to run as plants powered by natural gas, the study finds. "Because of the cost of upgrading plants to meet the EPA's pending emissions regulations and its stricter enforcement of current ...

TORONTO, ON – Chemical Engineering Professor Tim Bender and Post-Doctoral Fellow Benoit Lessard's discovery of an unexpected side product of polymer synthesis could have implications for the manufacture of commercial polymers used in sealants, adhesives, toys and even medical implants, the researchers say. Bender and Lessard discuss their discovery in "Boron subphthalocyanine polymers by facile coupling to poly (acrylic acid-ran-styrene) copolymers and the associated problems with autoinitition when employing nitroxide mediated polymerization," a paper published this ...