CiCi's Pizza has introduced the newest pizza on its custom buffet, The Meltdown, made with Parmesan, Romano and mozzarella cheeses with signature Italiano sauce topped with an oregano seasoning blend on a thin, crisp Italiano crust. The delicious new pizza is the third in CiCi's Italiano line, joining the Pepperoni & Sausage Italiano and the Veggie Italiano in the permanent CiCi's buffet rotation. It is being rolled out with a national advertising campaign featuring the tagline "So good it makes grown men cry." "The Meltdown was well received by ...

Environmental vibrations induced by urban railway traffic are mainly generated from uneven wheel–rail contact in the short wavelength range, according to a study in the 4th issue of SCIENCE CHINA Technological Sciences, 2012. The introduction of urban railways is one of the most effective ways to deal with traffic problems in large cities. However, in the vicinity of railways, day-by-day vibrations from trains may cause discomfort to people, the malfunctioning of sensitive equipment, and even damage to old buildings, and railways therefore have serious environmental ...

Aging may seem unavoidable, but that's not necessarily so when it comes to the brain. So say researchers in the April 27th issue of the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences explaining that it is what you do in old age that matters more when it comes to maintaining a youthful brain not what you did earlier in life. "Although some memory functions do tend to decline as we get older, several elderly show well preserved functioning and this is related to a well-preserved, youth-like brain," says Lars Nyberg of Umeå University in Sweden. Education won't save ...

HONOLULU – April 25, 2012 -- Many shark populations have plummeted in the past three decades as a result of excessive harvesting – for their fins, as an incidental catch of fisheries targeting other species, and in recreational fisheries. This is particularly true for oceanic species. However, until now, a lack of data prevented scientists from properly quantifying the status of Pacific reef sharks at a large geographic scale. In a study published online April 27 in the journal Conservation Biology, an international team of marine scientists provide the first estimates ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that mice and rats have evolved to gnaw with their front teeth and chew with their back teeth more successfully than rodents that 'specialise' in one or other of these biting mechanisms. Researchers designed a computer model to simulate the bite of rats to understand whether their skull shape or muscle arrangement was a major factor in their evolutionary success and global dominance, making them one of the most common pest species in the world. Research has already shown that rats and mice can both chew and gnaw, ...

(Toronto) - Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) led a study discovering a gene for a new form of intellectual disability, as well as how it likely affects cognitive development by disrupting neuron functioning. CAMH Senior Scientist Dr. John Vincent and his team found a mutation in the gene NSUN2 among three sisters with intellectual disability, a finding to be published in the May issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. The discovery was made after mapping genes in a Pakistani family, in which three of seven siblings had intellectual ...

Like a lead actress on the red carpet, nanowires—those superstars of nanotechnology—can be enhanced by a little jewelry, too. Not the diamonds and pearls variety, but the sort formed of sinuous chains of metal oxide or noble metal nanoparticles. Though science has known for some time that such ornamentation can greatly increase the surface area and alter the surface chemistry of nanowires, engineers at Stanford University have found a novel and more effective method of "decorating" nanowires that is simpler and faster than previous techniques. The results of their study ...

Claudia Bieber from the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology (FIWI) of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, and fellow scientists analysed a capture-recapture data set on common dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) to investigate the life-history strategy of this species. These small rodents are about the size and weight of a wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), but, unlike their rodent cousins, they hibernate – usually from late September/October to April/May. This is reflected in rather different life history strategies: While wood mice may reproduce any time between ...

China's economic growth will continue to be energy-intensive and highly polluting for the foreseeable future with emissions and efficiency far below capital growth on the agenda, according to a study published in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues. Economist Yanqing Xia of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and the Northeast Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning has looked at almost a decade's worth of data from 30 Chinese provinces to build a comprehensive model of pollution, energy consumption and economic growth. The model offers ...

Our genes control many aspects of who we are — from the colour of our hair to our vulnerability to certain diseases — but how are the genes, and consequently the proteins they make themselves controlled? Researchers have discovered a new group of molecules which control some of the fundamental processes behind memory function and may hold the key to developing new therapies for treating neurodegenerative diseases. The research, led by academics from the University of Bristol's Schools of Clinical Sciences, Biochemistry and Physiology and Pharmacology and published ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Obese drivers are far less likely to wear seatbelts than are drivers of normal weight, a new University at Buffalo study has found, a behavior that puts them at greater risk of severe injury or death during motor vehicle crashes. The UB study found that normal weight drivers are 67 percent more likely to wear a seatbelt than morbidly obese drivers. Drivers were considered overweight or obese if they had a BMI (body mass index) of 25 or more, according to the World Health Organization definition of obesity, with 25-30 defined as overweight, 30-35 slightly ...

In a new study, scientists at the University of Copenhagen show that a specific type of carbohydrate plays an important role in the intercellular signalling that controls the growth and development of the nervous system. In particular, defects in that carbohydrate may result in the uninhibited cell growth that characterizes the genetic disease neurofibromatosis and certain types of cancer. The results have just been published in the well-reputed journal PNAS. Scientists from The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen have put a special ...

This press release is available in German. In particle physics, the baryon family refers to particles that are made up of three quarks. Quarks form a group of six particles that differ in their masses and charges. The two lightest quarks, the so-called "up" and "down" quarks, form the two atomic components, protons and neutrons. All baryons that are composed of the three lightest quarks ("up", "down" and "strange" quarks) are known. Only very few baryons with heavy quarks have been observed to date. They can only be generated artificially in particle accelerators as ...

This press release is available in German. Optical atomic clocks measure time with unprecedented accuracy. However, it is the ability to compare clocks with one another that makes them applicable for high-precision tests in fundamental theory, from cosmology all the way to quantum physics. A clock comparison, i.e. a comparison of their optical frequencies, proved to be challenging so far as the few existing optical clocks around the world are not readily portable due to their complex nature. A team of researchers from the Physikalisch-TechnischeBundesanstalt (PTB) in ...

This press release is available in German. Leipzig/Dresden/Freiburg. In recent years the economic value of pollination-dependent crops has substantially increased around the world. As a team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Technical University of Dresden and the University of Freiburg headed by the UFZ wrote in an article entitled "Spatial and temporal trends of global pollination benefit" in the open-access journal PLoS ONE the value of ecological pollination services was around 200 billion US dollars in 1993 and rose ...

Medical researchers at the University of Sheffield have defined the structure of a key part of the human obesity receptor- an essential factor in the regulation of body fat- which could help provide new treatments for the complications of obesity and anorexia. This major advance in research, published in the journal Structure, will greatly enhance the ability to generate drugs which can both block and stimulate the receptor for the obesity hormone leptin. This could have life-changing effects on people suffering from the complications of obesity and malnutrition. Researchers ...

The fungal infection that killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to results of a new study. High levels of an aquatic, chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs' sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death. Their findings confirm what researchers have seen in carefully controlled lab experiments with the fungus, but San Francisco State University biologist Vance ...

Using nature's beauty as a tourist draw can boost conservation in China's valued panda preserves, but it isn't an automatic ticket out of poverty for the humans who live there, a unique long-term study shows. Often those who benefit most from nature-based tourism are people who already have resources. The truly impoverished have a harder time breaking into the tourism business, according to the paper, "Drivers and Socioeconomic Impacts of Tourism Participation in Protected Areas," published in the April 25 edition of PLoS One. The study looks at nearly a decade of burgeoning ...

Taking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells. The team, led by scientists from Princeton University, reported online April 22 in the journal Nature Photonics that the folds resulted in a 47 percent increase in electricity generation. Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, the principal investigator, said the finely calibrated folds on the surface of the panels channel light waves and increase the photovoltaic material's exposure to light. "On ...

Accredited nursing homes report a stronger resident safety culture than nonaccredited facilities, according to a new study published in the May 2012 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. The study shows that senior managers at more than 4,000 facilities across the U.S. identify Joint Commission accreditation as a positive influence on patient safety issues such as staffing, teamwork, training, nonpunitive responses to mistakes, and communication openness. The findings that accreditation stimulates positive changes in safety-related organizational ...

Obesity during pregnancy puts women at higher risk of a multitude of challenges. But, according to a new study presented earlier this month at the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine annual convention, fetal growth restriction, or the poor growth of a baby while in the mother's womb, is not one of them. In fact, study authors from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that the incidence of fetal growth restriction was lower in obese women when compared to non-obese women. Researchers, led by senior study author and high-risk pregnancy expert Loralei ...

Today's cars are increasingly custom-built. One customer might want electric windows, heated door mirrors and steering-wheel-mounted stereo controls, while another is satisfied with the minimum basic equipment. The situation with aircraft is no different: each airline is looking for different interior finishes – and lighting, ventilation, seating and monitors are different from one company to the next. Yet the customer's freedom is the manufacturer's challenge: because individual parts and mountings have to be installed in different locations along the fuselage, automated ...

Scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have directed the first self-assembly of nanoparticles into device-ready materials. Through a relatively easy and inexpensive technique based on blending nanoparticles with block co-polymer supramolecules, the researchers produced multiple-layers of thin films from highly ordered one-, two- and three-dimensional arrays of gold nanoparticles. Thin films such as these have potential applications for a wide range of fields, including computer memory storage, ...

The most transparent, lightweight and flexible material ever for conducting electricity has been invented by a team from the University of Exeter. Called GraphExeter, the material could revolutionise the creation of wearable electronic devices, such as clothing containing computers, phones and MP3 players. GraphExeter could also be used for the creation of 'smart' mirrors or windows, with computerised interactive features. Since this material is also transparent over a wide light spectrum, it could enhance by more than 30% the efficiency of solar panels. Adapted from ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 27, 2012) – As any crime show buff can tell you, DNA evidence identifies a victim's remains, fingers the guilty, and sets the innocent free. But in reality, the processing of forensic DNA evidence takes much longer than a 60-minute primetime slot. To create a victim or perpetrator's DNA profile, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) scans a DNA sample for at least 13 short tandem repeats (STRs). STRs are collections of repeated two to six nucleotide-long sequences, such as CTGCTGCTG, which are scattered around the genome. Because the ...