The enforcement of Law 42/2010, which extends the smoking ban to public places, has accompanied a progressive reduction in the percentage of smokers (from 40.3% to 35.3%) and in consumption amongst the working population. This decline applies to men and women of all ages and occupations. SINC A pioneering study, carried out by the Society of Prevention of Ibermutuamur (accidents and diseases mutual insurance for Social Security professionals) analysed the consumption of tobacco in the working populating during the first months of application of Law 42/2010. This law ...

Coca-Cola Refreshments has announced that it will open 800 jobs for veterans across the country. According to a press release published by The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch.com, this adds to the over 5,500 veterans that the company has already employed. Dr. Gordon T. Austin, a Navy veteran and award-winning dentist, applauds the efforts of Coca-Cola Refreshments to support United States veterans. Dr. Gordon T. Austin is encouraging other companies to recognize the skill sets that veterans offer, and the value that these skills hold. Steve Cahillane, the President ...

Alexandria, VA – In 2010, the world reached a milestone: The number of people living in urban areas reached 50 percent. This monumental shift from rural to urban living comes with consequences. Growing urban populations will have to learn to efficiently deal with increased demands for energy, transportation, sanitation, food and water while balancing the environmental impacts of such densely populated regions. Currently, 75 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels come from cities, which cover just 3 percent of Earth's land surface. As megacities continue ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (May 22, 2012) – Potentially severe hypersensitivity reactions to the anti-HIV drug abacavir occur through an autoimmune mechanism, resulting from the creation of drug-induced immunogens that are attacked by the body's immune system, according to a study published online by the journal AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The study is the first to explain how hypersensitivity reactions to abacavir develop in genetically predisposed patients—and suggests ...

A biomedical informatics researcher who tracks dangerous viruses as they spread around the globe has restructured his innovative tracking software to promote even wider use of the program around the world. Associate Professor Daniel Janies, Ph.D., an expert in computational genomics at the Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University (OSU), is working with software engineers at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) to expand the reach of SUPRAMAP (supramap.org), a web-based application that synthesizes large, diverse datasets so that researchers can better understand ...

Periodontists routinely grow bone in the mouth to guarantee a stable environment for teeth and tooth implants. But whether it's better to build up bone before placing the implant, or to simply place the implant and allow bone to grow around it, has been a subject of considerable medical debate. Now Prof. Zvi Artzi of Tel Aviv University's Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dentistry at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine has completed a study that concludes the two-step method is the more effective alternative — building bone first, then implanting and allowing ...

WASHINGTON – Many of the wrongful convictions identified in a report this week hinged on a misidentified culprit — and a new report in a top journal on psychological science reveals the paradox of reforms in eyewitness identification procedure. In our efforts to make sure that good guys don't get locked up, we could let more bad guys go. In the May issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, leading scholars in psychology and the law explore and debate various aspects of eyewitness identification procedures, ...

Biomedical engineers at UC Davis have developed a microfluidic chip to test for latent tuberculosis. They hope the test will be cheaper, faster and more reliable than current testing for the disease. "Our assay is cheaper, reusable, and gives results in real time," said Ying Liu, a research specialist working with Professor Alexander Revzin in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering. The team has already conducted testing of blood samples from patients in China and the United States. About one-third of the world's population is infected with the bacteria ...

According to an article from TechNewsDaily, recent Match.com survey results showed that key moments in a relationship are happening sooner rather than later. Researchers from The Kinsey Institute and the Institute for Evolutionary Studies at Binghamton University helped lead the study for Match.com. After looking at the findings, Mate1.com, an online dating service, agreed that timing is vital, especially in today's singles scene where daters are connecting constantly The survey addressed key moments in the various stages of a relationship, starting with the post-date ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Antibodies that help to stop the HIV virus have been found in breast milk. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center isolated the antibodies from immune cells called B cells in the breast milk of infected mothers in Malawi, and showed that the B cells in breast milk can generate neutralizing antibodies that may inhibit the virus that causes AIDS. HIV-1 can be transmitted from mother to child via breastfeeding, posing a challenge for safe infant feeding practices in areas of high HIV-1 prevalence. But only one in 10 HIV-infected nursing mothers is known ...

While it is hardly unusual for families to live on tight budgets, many families have found those budgets growing even tighter in recent years. After an extended period of economic tumult, recovery is beginning to happen slowly but surely--just as gasoline prices see major spikes. All of these factors have left parents and families looking to cut costs like never before, and a new report highlights one way in which families are doing just that--by purchasing clothing not from designer clothing boutiques or name-brand stores, but from consignment stores. Families across the ...

AMHERST, Mass. – New fish-tagging studies of young bluefin tuna in Atlantic waters off New England by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are offering the first fishery-independent, year-round data on dispersal patterns and habitat use for the popular game fish. The availability of miniaturized pop-up satellite tags suitable for smaller (two- to five-year-old) fish helped make the research possible. Fisheries oceanographer Molly Lutcavage and lead author Benjamin Galuardi say the work shows that scientists now have tools to directly observe bluefin ...

Total Mortgage Services, LLC, a leading national mortgage lender, announced an expansion of its Milford, CT headquarters. Total Mortgage has added an additional two thousand square-foot of office space which will house the company's senior leadership. The new space is part of the same building complex where Total Mortgage's origination and operation centers are located. Total Mortgage now occupies more than 10,000 square feet of office space at its headquarters on West Main Street in Milford, CT as well as other regional offices. "We have been part of the City of ...

Trumpet Marketing, a Maryland-based graphic design and Internet marketing company has launched a new initiative to assist local small businesses with developing new business through Internet mediums including websites, blogs and social media. On Monday, President, Barack Obama proclaimed this week as National Small Business Week. He has called upon all us to recognize the contributions of small businesses citing the importance of small businesses to the competitiveness of the American economy. "We couldn't agree more!" says Jim Williams, president of Trumpet ...

This press release is available in French. Over the course of 2011's momentous Arab Spring uprisings, young women in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen used social media and cyberactivism to carve out central roles in the revolutionary struggles under way in their countries, according to a new study commissioned by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The study, "Unveiling the Revolutionaries: Cyberactivism and Women's Role in the Arab Uprisings," explores the activism of several key figures, including Egypt's Esraa Abdel Fattah, who became widely ...

Internet governance policy has rapidly risen from a relatively marginal issue for the United States' foreign policy establishment to a significant component of the country's international affairs and national security strategy, according to a new paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The study, "From Tunis to Tunis: Considering the Planks of U.S. International Cyber Policy 2005-2011," investigates how and why the Internet, the wider cyberspace and information technology have come to matter a great deal to the departments of Defense and State ...

ASHEVILLE, NC -- Research by USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station biometrician Bernie Parresol takes center stage in a special issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management due out in June. Parresol is lead author of two of the five articles—and co-author of two more—in an issue that focuses on methods that incorporate fine-scale data into the tools Southeastern forest managers use to assess wildfire potential and plan mitigation treatments. Most fire behavior analyses rely on sparse plot inventories and data from satellites, and often do not address the ...

Rapid DNA sequencing may soon become a routine part of each individual's medical record, providing enormous information previously sequestered in the human genome's 3 billion nucleotide bases. This week's NEWSFOCUS section of the journal Science describes recent advances in sequencing technology. Stuart Lindsay, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics is on the forefront of this research, having successfully addressed a central stumbling block in nanopore sequencing—reading single nucleotide bases in a DNA chain. Lindsay's latest experimental ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Women who are unable to quit smoking during pregnancy can significantly improve the lung function of their newborns by taking Vitamin C daily, according to a new study at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital. "Smoking during pregnancy is known to adversely affect the lung development of the developing baby, causing lifelong decreased lung function and an increased risk of asthma," said Cindy McEvoy, M.D., M.C.R., neonatologist and associate professor of pediatrics at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital. "We found that babies ...

It's quite common for a female song sparrow to stray from her breeding partner and mate with the male next door, but a new study shows that sleeping around can be costly. The 20-year study, which is reported in The American Naturalist, found that offspring conceived outside sparrows' social pairs go on to have lower reproductive success than within-pair offspring. The findings throw a monkey wrench into theories about why ostensibly monogamous animals might be inclined to cheat. Most bird species display some form of monogamy. Bonded pairs stay together for a breeding ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Two popular MTV programs about teenage pregnancy -- "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" -- were met with national debate. Critics said the shows glamorized teenage pregnancy, while supporters said they discouraged it. A new study by an Indiana University professor suggests they're both right. The study, which will appear in the journal Sexuality & Culture, focused on female students because of the high dropout rate associated with pregnancy among this demographic. When the programs were under development, MTV sought the consultation of The National ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A new study by civil engineers at MIT shows that using stiffer pavements on the nation's roads could reduce vehicle fuel consumption by as much as 3 percent — a savings that could add up to 273 million barrels of crude oil per year, or $15.6 billion at today's oil prices. This would result in an accompanying annual decrease in CO2 emissions of 46.5 million metric tons. The study, released in a recent peer-reviewed report, is the first to use mathematical modeling rather than roadway experiments to look at the effect of pavement deflection on vehicle ...

Richmond, Va. – (May 22, 2012) – Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center may be one step closer to developing a new therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after discovering that the targeted agents obatoclax and sorafenib kill leukemia cells much more effectively when combined than when the drugs are administered individually. Recently published in the journal Blood, the results of a study led by Steven Grant, M.D., Shirley Carter Olsson and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Oncology Research, associate director for translational research and program ...

NEW YORK (May 22, 2012) -- Up to half of all prostate cancer cells have a chromosomal rearrangement that results in a new "fusion" gene and formation of its unique protein -- but no one has known how that alteration promotes cancer growth. Now, Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have found that in these cancer cells, the 3-D architecture of DNA, wrapped up in a little ball known as a chromatin, is warped in such a way that a switch has been thrown on thousands of genes, turning them on or off to promote abnormal, unchecked growth. Researchers also found that new ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 22, 2012) – Pushed to the brink of survival, the hyper-driven cells of a cancerous tumor tap into an ancient system that has helped organisms cope with internal stresses and environmental challenges since life began. As an integral part of this system, heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) has been shown to help malignant cells accommodate the genetic changes and profound disturbances in normal biology that occur in cancers. Researchers have theorized that inhibiting HSP90 just might render breast cancer cells less likely to escape the challenge posed ...