Dugan's Travels has been recognized by Sandals Resorts, the Luxury Included Vacation, at The Eleventh Annual Sandals Travel Agency Recognition (S.T.A.R.) Awards held December 1, 2012, at the newly renovated Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island in Nassau, Bahamas. Top agents including Dugan's Travels were recognized for their outstanding knowledge and performance in selling the world's best Luxury Included resorts. The resort company recognized and paid tribute to more than 400 travel agents from around the world including North America, Latin America ...

It is commonly stated that you can't have your cake and eat it too, but the electronic cigarette may break the long held beliefs by the anti-smoking establishment and do away with pharmaceuticals that come in at a dismal 5% success rate or less. Over the last year new studies, trials and test including the new Polish report have suggested that the electronic cigarette may be superior to any known pharmaceutical remedy or alternative. This may be why major pharmaceutical companies are dumping hundreds of millions into these anti-smoking groups that attack the electronic ...

Labbler connects artists, labels, clubs, media, promoters, booking agents and fans all within one place and provides the relevant functionality for all concerned to promote their business. You can browse by category, create multiple pages across all categories, check free artists dates, book tours, promote events, promote music, find venues, follow your favourite media, create and manage business connections, import tracks and charts from Beatport and Soundcloud, directly post from Labbler to Facebook, check the latest music in charts from all over the world and much ...

Electronic cigarette website E Cigarette Hub is giving away free smokeless cigarette trial kits at http://electroniccigarettehub.org. It's a one-stop shop to buy electronic cigarettes, read the best electronic cigarette reviews and quit smoking tobacco. Electronic cigarette user Jenny Jenkins says: "I started smoking the e cigarette after I found myself having extreme difficulty trying to keep from picking up a pack of cigs. Well, thanks to the electric cigarette, I have not touched a real cigarette for a long time and I feel great. I dropped about 27 lbs, breathe ...

A new survey shows that about one in four physicians uses social media daily or multiple times a day to scan or explore medical information, and 14 percent use social media each day to contribute new information, according to an oncologist at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. The survey of 485 oncologists and primary care physicians, also found that on a weekly basis or more, 61 percent of physicians scan for information and 46 percent contribute new information. More than half said they use online physician-only communities but only 7 percent said they use Twitter. ...

The electronic properties of graphene films are directly affected by the characteristics of the substrates on which they are grown or to which they are transferred. Researchers are taking advantage of this to create graphene p-n junctions by transferring films of the promising electronic material to substrates that have been patterned by compounds that are either strong electron donors or electron acceptors. A low temperature, controllable and stable method has been developed to dope graphene films using self-assembled monolayers (SAM) that modify the interface of graphene ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time. Researchers found that people who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played. Meanwhile, those who played nonviolent games showed no meaningful changes in aggression or hostile expectations over that period. Although other experimental studies have shown that a single session of playing a violent video game increased short-term ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Some hedge funds manipulate stock prices at the end of the month to improve the returns that they report to their investors, a new study suggests. In a study of 10 years of hedge fund data, researchers found evidence that some funds run up prices on specific stocks they hold on the last day of the month and quarter – especially the last 20 minutes of trading – before they report their returns for the period. But the prices usually fall back the next day, after the abnormally large returns have already been reported to investors. "Some hedge funds that ...

Neurofibromatosis-1 (NF1) is an inherited disorder caused by mutations in the NF1 gene that result in the formation of nervous tissue tumors (neurofibromas) in the skin, subcutaneous tissue, and the cranial and spinal root nerves. Additionally, NF1 patients are predisposed to juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), myeloproliferative disorders, and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST). NF1 encodes a protein that serves as a negative regulator of a signaling pathway composed of RAS, RAF, MEK, and ERK proteins, known as MAPK signaling cascades. Cells expressing ...

Brown fat is a specialized tissue in mammals that is used to generate heat (thermogenesis). While white fat is associated with increased body mass, brown fat is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI) and consumes large amounts of energy. Researchers have long been intrigued by the idea of brown fat transplant as a therapeutic tool to combat obesity. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Laurie Goodyear at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, performed brown fat transplants in mice to determine if this intervention could treat ...

Brown fat transplants help mice lose weight Brown fat is a specialized tissue in mammals that is used to generate heat (thermogenesis). While white fat is associated with increased body mass, brown fat is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI) and consumes large amounts of energy. Researchers have long been intrigued by the idea of brown fat transplant as a therapeutic tool to combat obesity. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Laurie Goodyear at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, performed brown fat transplants in mice ...

CINCINNATI – Researchers conducting a preclinical study in mice successfully used targeted molecular therapy to block mostly untreatable nerve tumors that develop in people with the genetic disorder Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1). Scientists from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their findings online Dec. 10 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "We can for the first time shrink the large majority of neurofibromas, at least in mice, by using a molecularly targeted treatment," said Nancy Ratner, PhD, principal investigator and program leader for the ...

Alternative means of controlling urban insect pests by using ultrasonic frequencies are available and marketed to the public. However, few of these devices have been demonstrated as being effective in repelling insect pests such as mosquitoes, cockroaches, or ants. Despite the lack of evidence for the efficacy of such devices, they continue to be sold and new versions targeting bed bugs are readily available. However, according to a soon-to-be-published article in the Journal of Economic Entomology, commercial devices that produce ultrasound frequencies are NOT promising ...

Depressed elderly men have a twofold risk of admission to hospital, found a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). This finding could have potential for helping identify at-risk men to prevent admissions. "Men with depression had a twofold increase in the mean number of hospital admissions, and these lasted on average twice as long as for men without depression," writes Dr. Matthew Prina, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, with coauthors. Researchers from Australia, the UK and the Netherlands undertook a study ...

Vertebrates' transition to living on land, instead of only in water, represented a major event in the history of life. Now, researchers reporting in the December issue of the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell provide new evidence that the development of hands and feet occurred through the gain of new DNA elements that activate particular genes. "First, and foremost, this finding helps us to understand the power that the modification of gene expression has on shaping our bodies," says Dr. José Luis Gómez-Skarmeta of the CSIC-Universidad Pablo de Olavide-Junta de Andalucía, ...

The orientation of antibody binding to bacteria can mean life or death to the bug, according to a study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine on December 10th. These findings may help explain why these bacteria cause millions of localized infections, but more serious, systemic blood infections are rare. Streptococcus pyogenes—the causative agent of strep throat—typically invades the body's mucosal surfaces, including the throat and skin. These invasions are kept in check by Y-shaped immune proteins called antibodies, which attach to the bug via their arm ...

One of the most frustrating truths about cancer is that even when a treatment works, it often doesn’t work for long because cancer cells find ways to resist. However, researchers reporting studies done in mice in the December 11, 2012, issue of Cancer Cell, a Cell Press publication, may have a way to stay one step ahead in the case of aggressive metastatic breast cancer. The findings emphasize the importance of basic cancer biology for advancing treatments that are more effective and less toxic, the researchers say. "We need to gain a better understanding of the wiring ...

Patients with sickle cell disease rely more on the emergency room as they move from pediatric to adult health care, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. An analysis of Medicaid data of more than 3,200 patients with sickle cell disease shows that emergency room visits tripled from age 15 to age 24. The research is reported Dec. 10 at the American Society of Hematology's annual meeting, in Atlanta. "There seems to be a breakdown in medical care during the transition from childhood to adulthood," says hematologist Morey A. ...

(ATLANTA, December 10, 2012) – Research unveiling key gaps in continuity of care for sickle cell patients transitioning from pediatric to adult care will be presented this week during the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited, chronic blood disorder affecting between 90,000 and 100,000 Americans. Instead of producing healthy red blood cells, individuals with the disease produce abnormal, sickle-shaped cells that cannot easily move through blood vessels and deliver adequate oxygen to the body's tissues ...

BOSTON – December 10, 2012 – Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have demonstrated that brown adipose tissue (BAT) has beneficial effects on glucose tolerance, body weight and metabolism. The findings, which may lead to new treatments for diabetes, appear in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Unlike the more prevalent white adipose tissue (WAT or white fat) which stores fat, BAT (or brown fat) burns fat to produce heat. Studies in mice and humans have suggested that BAT also plays a role in regulating body weight and metabolism. This has made ...

Josh Miller likes to call himself a conservation paleobiologist. The label makes sense when he explains how he uses bones as up-to-last-season information on contemporary animal populations. Bones, he says, provide baseline ecological data on animals complementary to aerial counts, adding a historical component to live observation. In his November cover article for the Ecological Society of America's journal Ecology, he assesses elk habitat use in Yellowstone National Park by their bones and antlers, testing his method against several decades of the Park Service's meticulous ...

A new oral agent under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is safe and effective in treating relapsed and treatment-resistant multiple myeloma, according to a multicenter, Phase II study presented by Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. The meeting is taking place December 8-11, 2012 in Atlanta. A multi-center research team evaluated 113 patients with multiple myeloma who had received at least two prior therapies and had subsequent disease progression to determine safety and efficacy of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (December 10, 2012) - For people using 30-day extended-wear/continuous-wear (EW/CW) contact lenses, replacing lenses at night doesn't lower the risk of complications compared to changing lenses monthly, suggests a study – "The Effect of Daily Lens Replacement During Overnight Wear on Ocular Adverse Events", appearing in the December issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. In contrast, replacing lenses every ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (December 10, 2012) - As surgical teams gain experience with facial transplantation, a careful approach to planning based on the principles of craniofacial surgery can help to maximize patient outcomes in terms of facial form and function, according to an article in The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery. The journal, under the editorship of Mutaz B. Habal, MD, is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. In patients with extensive facial defects including loss of the normal bone and soft tissue landmarks, a "reverse craniofacial ...

(ATLANTA, December 10, 2012) – A survey highlighting the correlation between today's cutting edge medical research and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding was released today at the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the preeminent medical meeting for physicians and scientists in hematology that draws more than 20,000 attendees from around the world. The survey, representing responses from 1,040 abstract presenters from the U.S. and abroad, demonstrates how critical NIH funding has been to the success of science and medicine. "Every ...