As they typically result from severe external perturbations, it is of vital interest how stable the most desirable state is. Surprisingly, this basic question has so far received little attention. Now scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), in a paper published in Nature Physics, propose a new concept for quantifying stability. "Up to now, science was able to say if a complex system is stable or not, but it wasn't able to properly say how stable it is," says Peter J. Menck, lead author of the paper. The proposed concept is the first to fill ...

The study, published today in Nature Climate Change, is the first of its kind on ice sheet melting to use structured expert elicitation (EE) together with an approach which mathematically pools experts' opinions. EE is already used in a number of other scientific fields such as forecasting volcanic eruptions. The ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland contain about 99.5 per cent of the Earth's glacier ice which would raise global sea level by some 63m if it were to melt completely. The ice sheets are the largest potential source of future sea level rise – and ...

Quebec City & Toronto, January 6, 2013—For individuals with agonizing pain, it is a cruel blow when the gold-standard medication actually causes more pain. Adults and children whose pain gets worse when treated with morphine may be closer to a solution, based on research published in the January 6 on-line edition of Nature Neuroscience. "Our research identifies a molecular pathway by which morphine can increase pain, and suggests potential new ways to make morphine effective for more patients," says senior author Dr. Yves De Koninck, Professor at Université Laval in ...

JUPITER, FL, January 6, 2012 – Scientists know that cells in all higher organisms cells need to bind to each other for the development, architecture, maintenance and function of tissues. Mysteries have remained, however, about exactly how cells manage this feat. Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have now solved part of this puzzle by defining the structure of a protein known as α-catenin, which is essential to this process. The work was published online ahead of print on January 6, 2012, by the journal Nature Structural ...

BOSTON – January 8, 2013 -- As part of their ongoing research on the physiologic factors that contribute to the development of obesity, Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have identified a cell cycle transcriptional co-regulator – TRIP-Br2 – that plays a major role in energy metabolism and fat storage. This finding has the potential to lead to new treatments for obesity. The study is being published today ahead of print by Nature Medicine. Transcriptional co-regulators manage the expression of DNA, either by activating or suppressing the expression of genes. TRIP-Br2 ...

VIDEO: This movie shows two simulations of planetary system disruption by galactic disturbances to wide binary stars. On the left is a zoomed-out view showing the orbit of a hypothetical 0.1... Click here for more information. TORONTO, ON – An international team of astrophysicists has shown that planetary systems with very distant binary stars are particularly susceptible to violent disruptions, more so than if they had stellar companions with tighter orbits around them. Unlike ...

Technologically valuable ultrastable glasses can be produced in days or hours with properties corresponding to those that have been aged for thousands of years, computational and laboratory studies have confirmed. Aging makes for higher quality glassy materials because they have slowly evolved toward a more stable molecular condition. This evolution can take thousands or millions of years, but manufacturers must work faster. Armed with a better understanding of how glasses age and evolve, researchers at the universities of Chicago and Wisconsin-Madison raise the possibility ...

Cleaning up mercury pollution and reducing prenatal exposure to the neurotoxin methylmercury (MeHg) could save the European Union €10,000 million per year, finds a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health. New estimates suggest that between 1.5 and 2 million children in the EU are born each year with MeHg exposures above the safe limit of 0.58µg/g and 200,000 above the WHO recommended maximum of 2.5µg/g. While some mercury occurs naturally in the environment for example from volcanic eruptions or forest fires, most is generated ...

"That's not what I meant": human communication is fraught with misinterpretation. Written out in longhand, words and letters can be misread. A telegraph clerk can mistake a dot for a dash. Noise will always be with us, but at least a new JQI (*) device has established a new standard for reading quantum information with a minimum of uncertainty. Success has come by viewing light pulses not with a single passive detector with but an adaptive network of detectors with feedback. The work on JQI's new, more assured photonic protocol was led by Francisco Becerra ...

DEERFIELD, IL-Beak shape variation in Darwin's finches is a classic example of evolutionary adaptation, with beaks that vary widely in proportions and shape, reflecting a diversity of ecologies. While living birds have a beak to manipulate their food, their fossil bird ancestors had teeth. Now a new fossil discovery shows some fossil birds evolved teeth adapted for specialized diets. A study of the teeth of a new species of early bird, Sulcavis geeorum, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, suggests this fossil bird had a durophagous ...

New research reveals a shared genetic susceptibility to epilepsy and migraine. Findings published in Epilepsia, a journal of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), indicate that having a strong family history of seizure disorders increases the chance of having migraine with aura (MA). Medical evidence has established that migraine and epilepsy often co-occur in patients; this co-occurrence is called "comorbidity." Previous studies have found that people with epilepsy are substantially more likely than the general population to have migraine headache. However, ...

PHILADELPHIA (January 7, 2013)—Fox Chase Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is now offering patients with advanced cancer a cutting-edge clinical test that will provide them with a unique blueprint of their cancer genes. The new clinical test, known as CancerCode-45TM, evaluates an individual's tumor for genetic alterations in a select group of 45 genes and gives physicians the opportunity to look at the alterations and be even more precise when choosing a course of treatment. The test is being offered through the Cancer ...

BLOOMINGTON and INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Under the law, whistle-blowers are supposed to be protected from direct reprisals on the job, including discrimination. But what if they and their actions becomes the subject of a widely distributed email? Is that a form of retaliation? Two professors at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business set out to answer that question and determine when public disclosure of the whistle-blower's identity -- like in an email -- is sufficient to support such a claim, in a paper that has been accepted for publication in North Carolina Law ...

VIDEO: Breastfeeding advice has been passed down for generations and many new mothers are faced with a lot of information to sort through. Researchers at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center... Click here for more information. COLUMBUS, Ohio – Breastfeeding can be a difficult time for both mother and baby, so using cabbage leaves and tea bags to ease pain or eating oatmeal to increase milk production are among the folk remedies that women pass along to new mothers ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have identified a key link between stem cell factors that fuel ovarian cancer's growth and patient prognosis. The study, which paves the way for developing novel targeted ovarian cancer therapies, is published online in the current issue of Cell Cycle. Lead author Yingqun Huang, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, and her colleagues have demonstrated a connection between two concepts that are revolutionizing the way cancer is treated. First, the "cancer stem cell" idea ...

Versatile and responsive to management, corn is grown throughout the world for everything from food to animal feed to fuel. A new use for corn could soon join that list, as researchers in China investigate the crop's ability to induce "suicidal germination" in a devastating parasitic weed. Known commonly as sunflower broomrape, the weed causes extensive damage to vegetable and row crops in Asia, Africa, and southern Eastern Europe. Lacking chlorophyll, it is a parasite and completely dependent on a host plant for water and nutrients. An infestation of broomrape in sunflower ...

We're pleased to announce Taradara,, in association with The Artisan Group, will participate in a luxury celebrity gift lounge hosted by GBK Productions on January 11-12, 2013 at an exclusive location in Beverly Hills, California, in honor of the The 2013 Golden Globe Awards Nominees and Presenters. Our iPad, Kindle, and Notebook Covers will be prominently featured on display at The Artisan Group's exhibit, and all attending celebrities will receive our Coffee Cozies in their swag bags. This event will also be attended by nearly fifty press and media outlets. To ...

What does a homeless woman, and young girl and a red balloon have in common? In this short tale, love and redemption is revealed by when three strangers meet and hope is revived. Altar Call Pictures, a small Christian film company in Orlando, Florida, has begun to create a buzz in the community. The latest film "The Girl With The Red Balloon" has tears falling, and jaws dropping around the globe. With it's online release on January 04, 2012, on YouTube, the film has already gone viral. "The Girl With The Red Balloon" allows the audience to think ...

Long-term care facility owners, administrators and purchasing directors planning their dietary budgets for the coming months have been keeping a close watch on the news this week amid fears that milk prices could double due to the so-called "Dairy Cliff". Well, the good news is that the budget deal passed by the U.S. Senate this week will prevent milk prices from going off the deep end. The farm provision was part of a deal affecting more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts. It is important to note, however, that this legislation only ...

Magic Senses (http://www.MagicSenses.com ), in association with The Artisan Group , will participate in a luxury Gift Lounge hosted by GBK Productions on January 11-12, 2013 at an exclusive location in Beverly Hills, California, in honor of the 2013 Golden Globes Nominees and Presenters. Their creative glycerin soap will be prominently featured on display at The Artisan Group's exhibit; the selected soap bars to be on display are "Grapefruit", "Feng Shui Wood", "Jazzy Jasmine", "Plumeria", "Peppermint" and "Rising ...

Begin the new year with a resolution to capture special memories in engraved picture frames by GiftWorksPlus, a leading custom picture frame company based in the Midwest that offers a colossal selection of personalized frames. For no extra charge, GiftWorksPlus will engrave names, dates, messages, and more to keep special times at the forefront and not forgotten. As the new year progresses, holidays and events can be marked with engraved frames for Valentine's Day, frames for Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, frames as military keepsakes, frames for graduation, and wedding ...

Designed with simplicity in mind, ezCheckprinting from Halfpricesoft.com is the simple, flexible and affordable check design and printing software for any businesses. In response to the request of QuickBooks users, Halfpricesoft.com released the new ezCheckPrinting check writer and check virtual printer. The new blank stock printing features offers QuickBooks users better and cheaper options to print checks. QuickBooks and Quicken users do not have to buy the expensive pre-printed checks any more. EzCheckPrinting is $39 per installation. QuickBooks user can get ezCheckPrinting ...

Elite Ayrshire Business Circle executive chairman and Frazer Coogans Solicitors managing partner Norman Geddes is spending the first week of 2013 in Shenzhen, southern China as the guest of mineral water bottling and distribution company Ganten, the recent purchaser of Blairquhan Castle in South Ayrshire. Also in the visiting party are Norman's wife and daughter, former Blairquhan Castle owner Sir Patrick Hunter Blair and members of his family, and Ayrshire business woman Meiqin McColm. The objective of the visit is to promote business and cultural links between China ...

"The only constant is change." This phrase has more meaning now than ever before according to Deborah. It seems like every day there is a new initiative or modification that brings about new workplace as well as life challenges. Leaders along with OD and HR professionals are then charged with steering others through these changes and challenges. No matter how difficult this process may seem, it holds tremendous learning opportunities. There are important messages in change, emphasizing the necessity to keep pace with new business and cultural frontiers. In this ...

Kurtinz.com offers 30% discount on all made to measure items for every customer who will take advantage of their services. It can help clients have the items they want for a friendly price. Kurtinz.com is the best hub for luxury and affordable made to measure items that will fit the preference of clients. Shopping on their site is very straightforward and enjoyable. Now that they are offering 30% discount, customers will further enjoy their time shopping for excellent products like made to measure curtains and roman blinds. In addition, the website is home for a wide ...