If you've walked into a drug store or department store to shop for a dry skin treatment recently you may have been a bit overwhelmed by all of the options available. Choosing the best lotion for dry skin doesn't have to be difficult. You just need to know what to look for and what to avoid in a dry skin cream. You also need to know about a recent discovery in the field of cosmetics. The first thing you think you want to look for is the word "natural". There is approximately six pounds of skin on your body - it's largest organ and also a giant porous membrane. ...

Online Casino Archives is proud to announce an upgrade of mobile apps reviews. The onset of the Olympics was the site's first opportunity to showcase the expanded mobile news and games section. Mobile apps are quickly surpassing social apps in being essential to consumers for work and play. The business of mobile apps is expected to grow from a $6 billion industry in 2012 to a $55.7 billion industry in 2015. Online Casino Archives believes that providing information on mobile gaming, sports and lifestyle apps to smartphone and tablet users is of the utmost importance. ...

This week SJD Accountancy, the UK's largest accountancy firm for contractors and freelancers, revealed the results of a detailed survey which was carried out in July across its 11,000+ contractor client base. More than 1,000 clients responded to the 30 question survey, giving a unique insight into the contractor market in the UK today. These findings provide valuable information for both contractors and their clients alike on the subjects that matter most, and will also help contractors to understand more about the community in which they work. Against a backdrop ...

This month we examine yet another homonym. However, this one has so many meanings and subtle divisions of meanings, and is so frequently confused, that it deserves an entire post all to itself! Principle/principal Principle: We will deal with principle first as it is - at first look, anyway - the most straightforward. The most common meaning of principle is a law or rule: particularly a moral or ethical rule, a fundamental cultural value, a legal rule or a scientific rule. The word principle is a noun and is never used in any other way, which might help avoid ...

Tuiss, the online, made to measure curtains and window blind retailer, are now offering a fantastic new FREE service called SureSize(TM); a no quibble replacement service for measuring mix ups! For the many people who shop online to save money, making a costly measuring mistake is a primary concern. Tuiss.co.uk are taking the worry away by introducing a new service called SureSize(TM), which offers complete peace of mind to anyone purchasing any of their blinds or curtains. If a measuring mistake is made Tuiss will send a replacement at the correct size and you don't ...

While fear of terrorist attacks overshadows the Olympic Games, the "lone wolf" terrorist is a cause for concern: one who is almost impossible to track by means of the "usual" intelligence and tracking tools. Prof. Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, who has been monitoring terrorism on the Internet for over a decade, has found that most of these individuals do find a "virtual wolfpack" to belong to on the net. A mounting global threat is of terrorists who act as "lone wolves". Locating and preventing such terrorist activity is more complicated than organizational ...

Kyoto, Japan, Aug. 1, 2012 - A research group at the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Japan's Kyoto University has successfully recapitulated amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-associated abnormalities in motor neurons differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) obtained from patients with familial ALS, a late-onset, fatal disorder which is also known for Lou Gehrig's disease. In a drug screening assay using the disease model, the team further found that the chemical compound anacardic acid can rescue some ALS phenotypes in vitro. In ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Two Geology studies focus on debris flows and landslides, one from the point of view of alpine denudation and the other studying and quantifying hazards to human populations. Subjects of other studies include fossil microatolls and sea level; the potential rupture area for an earthquake offshore of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia; paleoclimate; and the relationship between the formation of ore deposits and the growth cycle of microbial communities. Highlights are provided below. GEOLOGY articles published ahead of print can be accessed ...

Perhaps no other material is generating as much excitement in the electronics world as graphene, sheets of pure carbon just one atom thick through which electrons can race at nearly the speed of light – 100 times faster than they move through silicon. Superthin, superstrong, superflexible and superfast as an electrical conductor, graphene has been touted as a potential wonder material for a host of applications, starting with ultrafast transistors. For the vast potential of graphene to be fully realized, however, scientists must first learn more about what makes graphene ...

HIV care centers are an important and highly accessed point of care for HIV-infected children and their families in sub-Saharan Africa, but opportunities to address other health issues are being missed. Proven interventions, including routine deworming among young children, could be effectively integrated into HIV care according to a newly published article in PLoS by University of Washington researchers. The article, "Integration of Deworming into HIV Care and Treatment: A Neglected Opportunity," estimates that millions of HIV-infected individuals in sub-Saharan Africa ...

A UCLA-led project to implement a unique HIV intervention program aimed at reducing sexually risky behaviors and promoting healthier living among heterosexual African American couples has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. The program, based on Eban — a Yoruban concept from West Africa that symbolizes "safety, security and love within one's family and community" — is designed not only to reduce the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases but to increase couples' ability to communicate with each other, make safer behaviors ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have decoded for the first time the "stability blueprint" of an enzyme that resides in a cell's membrane, mapping which parts of the enzyme are important for its shape and function. These studies, published in advance online on June 14 in Structure and on July 15 in Nature Chemical Biology, could eventually lead to the development of drugs to treat malaria and other parasitic diseases. "[It's] the first time we really understand the architectural logic behind the structure of the enzyme," says Sinisa Urban, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., August 2, 2012 – For years, scientists have been looking for a good source of heart cells that can be used to study cardiac function in the lab, or perhaps even to replace diseased or damaged tissue in heart disease patients. To do this, many are looking to stem cells. Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), the Human BioMolecular Research Institute, and ChemRegen, Inc. have been searching for molecules that convert stem cells to heart cells for about eight years—and now they've found one. Writing in the August 3 issue ...

Genetics clearly plays a role in cancer development and progression, but the reason that a certain mutation leads to one cancer and not another is less clear. Furthermore, no links have been found between any cancer and a type of genetic change called "copy-number variants," or CNVs. Now, a new study published by Cell Press in The American Journal of Human Genetics on August 2 identifies CNVs associated with testicular cancer risk, but not with the risk of breast or colon cancer. Some cancers, including breast and colon cancer, are caused by mutations that are passed ...

Scientists are beginning to understand one of life's enduring mysteries - why women live, on average, longer than men. Published today in Current Biology, research led by Monash University, describes how mutations to the DNA of the mitochondria can account for differences in the life expectancy of males and females. Mitochondria, which exist in almost all animal cells, are vital for life because they convert our food into the energy that powers the body. Dr Damian Dowling and PhD student, Florencia Camus, both from the Monash School of Biological Sciences, worked with ...

The composition of microbes in the gut changes dramatically during pregnancy, according to a study published by Cell Press in the August 3rd issue of the journal Cell. Although these changes are associated with metabolic disease under most circumstances, they could be beneficial in pregnant women. "This is the first in-depth characterization of the gut microbiota associated with pregnancy," says senior study author Ruth Ley of Cornell University. "The findings suggest that our bodies have coevolved with the microbiota and may actually be using them as a tool—to help alter ...

JUPITER, FL – August 2, 2012 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a protein that impairs the development and maintenance of lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes), but is repressed during the initial stages of the disease, allowing for rapid tumor growth. While the study, published in the August 3, 2012 edition of the journal Cell, largely focuses on the role of this new tumor suppressor in lymphoma induced by Myc oncoproteins (the cancer-promoting products of Myc oncogenes), the authors show this circuit is apparently operational ...

New York, NY (August 2, 2012) — Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have identified a mechanism that can give energy-storing white fat some of the beneficial characteristics of energy-burning brown fat. The findings, based on studies of mice and of human fat tissue, could lead to new strategies for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes. The study was published today in the online edition of the journal Cell. Humans have two types of fat tissue: white fat, which stores excess energy in the form of triglycerides, and brown fat, which is highly efficient ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Stem cells are special. Nestled in muscle and skin, organ and bone, they bide their time over years or decades until called to replace damaged or lost tissue. One secret to their longevity is an enzyme called telomerase, which stills the relentless ticking of the molecular clock that limits the life span of other cells. This cellular fountain of youth prevents the progressive shortening of the tips of our chromosomes that occurs with each cell division. But the presence of telomerase can be a double-edged sword: The same activity that ensures long life ...

BOSTON (8/2/12) -- Through the assembly of genetic components into "circuits" that perform logical operations in living cells, synthetic biologists aim to artificially empower cells to solve critical problems in medicine, energy and the environment. To succeed, however, they'll need far more reliable genetic components than the small number of "off-the-shelf" bacterial parts now available. Now a new method developed by Boston University biomedical engineers Ahmad S. Khalil and James J. Collins -- and collaborators at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital ...

Changes in seismic velocity--changes in the speeds at which seismic waves move through the Earth's crust--have been identified during and after many earthquakes. But do these changes also happen before an earthquake, and could they be measured as a way to predict a quake on the way? The search for a clear and measurable pre-quake signal has been called "the holy grail of seismology." In a new analysis of the 2004 magnitude 6.0 Parkfield earthquake in California, David Schaff suggests some limits on how changes measured by ambient seismic noise could be used as a pre-earthquake ...

The press release and paper noted below, publishing in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, is strictly under embargo until 12:00 Noon Eastern Time US on August 2, 2012. The past decade has been plagued with what seems to be a cluster of large earthquakes, with massive quakes striking Sumatra, Chile, Haiti and Japan since 2004. Some researchers have suggested that this cluster has occurred because the earthquakes may be "communicating" across large distances, possibly triggering each other. But a new analysis by Tom Parsons and Eric Geist of the US Geological ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 2, 2012) – Whitehead Institute researchers have found that increased expression of a specific set of genes is strongly associated with metastasis and death in patients with breast, colon, and lung cancers. Not only could this finding help scientists identify a gene profile predictive of patient outcomes and response to treatment, it could also guide the development of therapeutics to target multiple cancer types. The genes identified are activated by a transcription factor called heat-shock factor 1 (HSF1) as part of a transcriptional program ...

This press release is available in French. Researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine and CHUM hospitals have linked some cases of Essential Tremor (ET) to a specific genetic problem. ET is the most common movement disorder, becoming increasingly frequent with increasing age, which is characterized by an involuntary shaking movement (tremor) that occurs with motion, particularly when doing precise fine movement. The researchers will be publishing their findings tomorrow in The American Journal of Human Genetics. Exactly why this ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 2, 2012) – Planarian flatworms have come under intense study for their renowned ability to regenerate any missing body part, even as adults. But now they may take on a starring role as a model system for studying eye development and eye diseases in vertebrates, including humans. This expansion of the planarian job description comes courtesy of Whitehead Institute researchers, who this week are publishing in Cell Reports an exhaustive catalog of genes active in the planarian eye. "It's exciting to get this complete list of genes in one fell swoop," ...