Many expectant mothers, especially those experiencing their first pregnancy, prefer to give birth as naturally as possible. To them, this means avoiding epidural injections altogether. Some of these women, however, change their minds immediately before -- or during -- labor. Others understand that an epidural could allow them to experience the birth more fully while reducing pain. Before you decide to have an epidural, it is important to understand the risks involved. What injuries can epidurals cause? Are epidurals safe for infants? Who is responsible for an epidural ...

Everywhere we live, work or play, we're beholden to the construction workers who put in the long hours and elbow grease to lay a foundation and build a safe, strong building for us to use. Residents in Chicago, Illinois, know that this city was built on that kind of blue-collar work ethic. Unfortunately, a construction site also can be one of the most dangerous places to work. That's not surprising, given all the heavy equipment and power tools involved in the process. The danger of serious injury or death, however, is much greater when tools used in construction have ...

Cosmetic Dentist Christian Hahn is a Bon Jovi super fan and wants to give a fan of the famous rocker a chance to win a prize sure to make him or her smile: a great seat at Bon Jovi's March 14, 7:30 PM show at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville. "When I heard that Bon Jovi was coming to Louisville, I asked my wife for just one thing for Christmas: great tickets to the show," said Dr. Hahn, who has been a fan since the 1980s. "We have an extra pair of tickets to give away and are holding a drawing for them. Anyone can enter at Ideal Dentistry at 4010 ...

Until now, there have only been basic plastic grates for channel drains and catch basins. While functional, they do little to improve aesthetics of an outdoor living area which lead to the attractiveness of decorative metal grates for these popular catch basins and channel drains. Consumer Trends: - Indoor living is moving outdoors - kitchens, fireplaces, living rooms are all on the rise for installations. It is not just a patio or porch. - Consumers are demanding more from installations - design, aesthetics and special touches/details typically expected from interior ...

Consumers and financial advisors alike will come to see the new tax law, the American Tax Relief Act for 2012 as an inappropriate name for a law that was passed in 2013 and even worse, one that provides for significant tax increases with little or no "tax relief" for 2013 and beyond. Though there were some continuation of the lower tax rates, as well as a host of tax credits, the vast majority of the bill focuses on a substantial increase in both the number of new taxes and higher tax rates. These new taxes combined with the new taxes for 2013 on investment income ...

Why the buzz about Canadian Web Hosting? We've been told this is the 'Information age', and the rapid integration of information technology into nearly every facet of our lives has had major implications across the board. A particularly noteworthy development has been the demise of phone books. Yellow Pages, CanPages and similar directory printers around the world will never have the same need for paper and printing presses again. The resources they need now - web development, digital signage, bandwidth, talent - are representative of an elemental shift that has occurred ...

It is no surprise that gaming and betting is big business within the United Kingdom, with more than half of sports wager now carried out either online or via a mobile device. It is for that reason, those two UK web masters, Ryan and Matthew, both from England, United Kingdom, decided to pair up their skill sets and creative a new betting promotions portal, which became known as "Low Risk Winner". On first glance, one is immediately greeted by several sections, and a dedicated sports news area, which appears to review and cover many English football matches ...

A blog may prove to be your best marketing tool; a well-written and actively promoted blog can attract more clients than many other forms of marketing combined while simultaneously establishing your brand and increasing your reputation as an expert in your field. It does, however, take time and patience to make your blog into a successful marketing tool. If you are fortunate enough to have an established blog in place already, with a large following, then - congratulations - you are already more than halfway there. If you don't have a blog as yet, or have only recently ...

NASA astronaut Don Pettit was awarded NASA Engineer of the Year by the National Society of Professional Engineers/Professional Engineers in Government (NSPE/PEG) Feb. 21, at the Federal Engineer of the Year Awards ceremony held at the National Press Club in Washington. As a flight engineer during Expedition 30/31 aboard the International Space Station, Pettit shared his love of science with students through weekly videos. Pettit, who has a doctorate in physics from the University of Arizona, created 14 videos, comprised of experiments and demonstrations in a microgravity ...

CPN, a nationwide credit card processing company, today announced that it has unveiled a new web presence at CPNUSA.com. The website provides information on CPN's suite of services and offers users a more transparent merchant services experience. "The new CPN online presence gives a better experience to existing and prospective customers," said Patrick Hare, Digital Marketing Manager for CPN. "We are looking to pull back the curtain on merchant services, and provide everyone with a better credit card processing experience." One of the value propositions ...

Dons of Desperado is a story and artwork-driven mobile Card Battle RPG that allows users to collect cards and use them to compete with other players in countless missions, battles, and special events. In the game's story, the gamer plays a character who has recently suffered from amnesia, fighting to discover his origins and the world around him. What the world of Desperado has to offer: - Strong, story-driven gameplay in its missions and events - An intuitive user interface, carefully designed for better user experience - Hundreds of collectible cards with incredible ...

For patients with bone and soft tissue tumours, the study data currently available allow no robust conclusions as to the advantages and disadvantages of using positron emission tomography (PET), alone or in combination with computed tomography (CT). This is because no studies have directly compared the benefit of these imaging techniques with conventional diagnostics. And the few available studies on diagnostic accuracy do not show any relevant differences. This is the conclusion of the final report of the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) ...

Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia researchers discovered important genetic clues about the history of microorganisms called archaea and the origins of life itself in the first ever study of its kind. Results of their study shed light on one of Earth's oldest life forms. "Archaea are an ancient form of microorganisms, so everything we can learn about them could help us to answer questions about the origin of life," said William Whitman, a microbiology professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and co-author on the paper. Felipe Sarmiento, lead author ...

Just as a global posi­tion­ing sys­tem (GPS) helps find your loca­tion, the brain has an inter­nal sys­tem for help­ing deter­mine the body's loca­tion as it moves through its surroundings. A new study from researchers at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity pro­vides evi­dence for how the brain per­forms this feat. The study, pub­lished in the jour­nal Nature, indi­cates that cer­tain position-tracking neu­rons — called grid cells — ramp their activ­ity up and down by work­ing together in a col­lec­tive way to deter­mine loca­tion, rather than each cell act­ing on its own as was ...

The ancient Egyptians did not live in such good conditions and were not surrounded by such opulence as was thought up to now, but, rather, suffered from hunger and malnutrition, a whole range of infectious diseases and an extremely high infant mortality rate. Furthermore, the governors of Aswan, on the border with Sudan, as well as their families, interbred with the black peoples of the neighbouring country. These are some of the conclusions drawn from the Qubbet el-Hawa research project, carried out by the University of Jaen, in which anthropologists from the University ...

A University of Central Florida chemist has come up with a unique way to kill certain cancer cells – give them acid reflux. Chemistry professor Kevin Belfield used a special salt to make cancer cells more acidic – similar to the way greasy foods cause acid reflux in some people. He used a light-activated, acid-generating molecule to make the cells more acidic when exposed to specific wavelengths of light, which in turn kills the bad cells. The surrounding healthy cells stay intact. The technique is a simple way around a problem that has frustrated researchers for years. ...

Philadelphia, PA—For many of us, maple syrup is an essential part of breakfast—a staple accompaniment to pancakes and waffles—but rarely do we think about the complicated and little-understood physiological aspects of syrup production. Each spring, maple growers in temperate regions around the world collect sap from sugar maple trees, which is one of the first steps in producing this delicious condiment. However, the mechanisms behind sap exudation—processes that trigger pressure differences causing sap to flow— in maple trees are a topic of much debate. In a paper ...

VIDEO: Karen Tashima, MD, director of the HIV Clinical Trials Program at The Miriam Hospital, led a study to look at new treatment regimens for patients with drug-resistant HIV. ... Click here for more information. PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new multi-site study reveals patients with drug-resistant HIV can safely achieve viral suppression – the primary goal of HIV therapy – without incorporating the traditional class of HIV medications into their treatment regimen. Karen Tashima, M.D., ...

(Edmonton) An overwhelming majority of Albertans believe dying adults should have the right to request to end their life, according to new research from the University of Alberta. U of A researcher Donna Wilson led the team that studied the views of 1,203 Albertans on assisted suicide, currently illegal in Canada. A majority—77.4 per cent—felt dying adults should have the right to end their life early. "Increasingly, there are countries or states where they are allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia. Like many of those countries, Canada will have to grapple with this ...

HOUSTON – (March 6, 2013) – Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have discovered phthalates, industrial chemicals, in common foods purchased in the United States. Phthalates can be found in a variety of products and food packaging material, child-care articles and medical devices. "Although it's not completely understood how phthalates get into our food, packaging may be a contributor to the levels of the toxin in food," said lead investigator Arnold Schecter, M.D., M.P.H., professor of environmental health at The University ...

The species from the genus Copa are very common spiders found in the leaf litter of various habitats. Being predominantly ground-living, they occur widely in savanna woodlands but also occasionally in forests, where they are well camouflaged. They usually share the litter microhabitats with several other species of the family Corinnidae. The spiders from this cryptic, ground-dwelling genus in the continental Afrotropical Region are revised in a study published in the open access journal Zookeys. The number of continental species in the Afrotropical Region has been reduced ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute have found that some widely used formulas for predicting how rapidly technology will advance — notably, Moore's Law and Wright's Law — offer superior approximations of the pace of technological progress. The new research is the first to directly compare the different approaches in a quantitative way, using an extensive database of past performance from many different industries. Some of the results were surprising, says Jessika Trancik, an assistant professor of engineering systems at MIT. The findings could ...

AMES, Iowa – Bong Wie has heard the snickers. You want to protect the Earth from asteroids? Where were you when the dinosaurs needed you? You want to be like Bruce Willis in that asteroid movie? Wie has a serious reply: After five years of science and engineering work, Wie and his small team have a publication list of 40-plus technical papers, $600,000 of NASA research support and a proposal for a $500 million test launch of an asteroid intercept system. Plus, Wie has just been invited to show off his research as part of NASA's Technology Day on the Hill in Washington, ...

This press release is available in French. Dr. Roberto Morandotti and his team at the INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre have developed a device that is critical to the use of terahertz (THz) sources for a variety of applications. Their electromagnetic non-reciprocal isolator is the subject of a recent article in Nature Communications, showing just how important this new development is. Until now, no isolator existed that was effective in the THz region of the spectrum, a situation that held back the development of certain technologies. The new ...

The transistors and wires that power our electronic devices need to be mounted on a base material known as a "motherboard." Our human brain is not so different — neurons, the cells that transmit electrical and chemical signals, are connected to one another through synapses, similar to transistors and wires, and they need a base material too. But the cells serving that function in the brain may have other functions as well. PhD student Maurizio De Pittà of Tel Aviv University's Schools of Physics and Astronomy and Electrical Engineering says that astrocytes, the star-shaped ...