Alberta's oilsands have water challenges. Oilsands development uses a vast amount of water and even though it's recycled multiple times, the recycling concentrates the toxins and metals leftover from extracting and upgrading the bitumen, resulting in tailings ponds that are both a lightening rod for controversy and a significant risk to the environment. A research project underway between biologists at the University of Calgary and engineers at the University of Alberta to help resolve the water issue is making rapid progress toward that goal. Two years into the research, ...

Clarke, a brand of Nilfisk-Advance, Inc., introduces the latest addition to the company's line of carpet extractors, the BEXT Pro Portable Extractor. Delivering instant, continuous heat of 212 degrees Fahrenheit solution, the BEXT Pro effectively attacks tough carpet stains. The BEXT Pro is available in two pressures--100 psi and 400 psi--in addition to models with heated and non-heated performance, providing operators with the ultimate cleaning flexibility to satisfy applications ranging from light duty cleaning to deep extraction requirements. With a durable, user-friendly ...

From improving food security to their use as biotechnology power horses, Trichoderma fungi are increasingly being exploited by industry. Current advances in the field are brought together and highlighted in a special issue of Microbiology published online on 27 December. Trichoderma are free-living fungi widely used in agricultural biotechnology. Some species of Trichoderma are specifically used as biocontrol agents to control plant pathogens including Fusarium species. Their success is partly due to mycoparasitism – a lifestyle where one fungus is parasitic on another ...

It is vital that the body's own immune system does not overreact. If its key players, the helper T cells, get out of control, this can lead to autoimmune diseases or allergies. An immune system overreaction against infectious agents may even directly damage organs and tissues. Immune cells called regulatory T cells ("Tregs") ensure that immune responses take place in a coordinated manner: They downregulate the dividing activity of helper T cells and reduce their production of immune mediators. "This happens through direct contact between regulatory cell and helper cell," ...

New research hopes to explain premature births and failed inductions of labour. The study by academics at the University of Bristol suggests a new mechanism by which the level of myosin phosphorylation is regulated in the pregnant uterus. The researchers, Dr Claire Hudson and Professor Andrés López Bernal in the School of Clinical Sciences and Dr Kate Heesom in the University Proteomics Facility and the School of Biochemistry, have discovered that phosphorylation of uterus proteins at specific amino acids have a key role in the regulation of uterine activity in labour. A ...

Has the packet been properly filled? Are there impurities in the chocolate? Have the plastic seams been welded correctly? Is there a knife hidden in the parcel? Answers to all these questions are provided by SAMMI, short for Stand Alone MilliMeter wave Imager. The millimeter-wave sensor is able to see through all non-transparent materials. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Wachtberg have developed the device, whichat 50 centimeters wide and 32 centimeters high is no larger than a compact laser printer. SAMMI can ...

Advance introduces the newest addition to the company's upright vacuum product line with the Spectrum 12H Single Motor Upright Vacuum. With high-quality dirt pickup and filtration capabilities, the Spectrum 12H is designed to withstand the demanding environmental conditions and the unique operational needs found in the hospitality market. "The hospitality industry requires continuous cleaning and carpet maintenance to ensure excellent guest satisfaction," said Bob Abrams, Product Manager for Nilfisk-Advance. "The Spectrum 12H meets these requirements with ...

Murphy's Law is a useful scapegoat for human error: "If something can go wrong, it will." But, a new study by researchers in Canada hopes to put paid to this unscientific excuse for errors by showing that the introduction of verification and checking procedures can improve structural safety and performance and so prevent the application of the "law". Engineer Franz Knoll of Nicolet Chartrand Knoll Ltd., based in Montreal, Quebec, writing in the International Journal of Reliability and Safety explains that faults and flaws in any industrial product almost always originate ...

A lack of infrastructure in developing countries, and particularly in rural areas, often ensures that healthcare provision is absent. Research published in the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management by a team at Howard University in Washington DC suggests a solution to this insidious problem involving the development of telemedicine. Ronald Leach and colleagues describe a highly asynchronous service model for healthcare delivery. The approach is much cheaper to implement than direct medicine and even less expensive than other approaches to telemedicine ...

Researchers from the University of Southampton have contributed to a major international United Nation's (UN) report into the current status of the world's land and water resources for food and agriculture. Dr Craig Hutton, Professor Mike Clark, both from the University's GeoData Institute, and demographer Dr Fiifi Amoako Johnson contributed as authors as well external editors to the recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation publication, 'State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture' (SOLAW). The report notes that with the task ...

TORONTO, Ont. -- Hospitals vary greatly in the number of patients who see an internal medicine specialist before major non-cardiac surgery, with rates ranging from five per cent of patients to 90 per cent, new research has found. The findings are important because they suggest there are no commonly agreed upon standards for which patients should have such consultations, said Dr. Duminda Wijeysundera, a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). As a result, some patients may be ...

Every year millions of people make new years resolutions to lose weight, shine in their career, improve their relationship, and find more balance in their lives. However, every year millions of these resolutions are never met...why? People make these resolutions with good intentions and a desire to change. So what happens? What goes so wrong? Simply put, the person does not have the precise skills, encouragement, and direction necessary to make their resolutions a reality. This is the reason both men and women today are hiring a professional life coach for assistance! ...

Virginia Tech crashed the supercomputing arena in 2003 with System X, a machine that placed the university among the world's top computational research facilities. Now comes HokieSpeed, a new supercomputer that is up to 22 times faster and yet a quarter of the size of X, boasting a single-precision peak of 455 teraflops, or 455 trillion operations per second, and a double-precision peak of 240 teraflops, or 240 trillion operations per second. That's enough computational capability to place HokieSpeed at No. 96 on the most recent Top500 List (http://www.top500.org/), ...

Most people have the best of intentions when it comes to their New Years resolutions. As the year comes to an end, it is only natural to reflect on what we have accomplished and what we still want to change. This is actually what generates the desire within to make the changes needed to get to where we want to be. Whether it is to lose weight, find a significant other, or excel in the workplace for most people this true desire for change does exist. So what happens? Why do so many men and women with good intentions and true desire fall short of their New Years resolutions ...

Scientists have uncovered how nature minimises energy costs in rings of liquids with an internal nanostructure made of two chemically discordant polymers joined with strong bonds, or di-blocks, deposited on a silicon surface, in an article about to be published in EPJE¹. Josh McGraw and his colleagues from McMaster University, Canada, and the University of Reading, UK, first created rings of di-block polymers that they liken to building doughnuts from Lego blocks due to the nature of the material used. This material has an internal structure discretised like Lego blocks, ...

In this struggling economy many child support obligors have lost their jobs or have faced a reduction in income. This may qualify for a modification of their child support order. John Griffith, a Del Mar, California divorce attorney, commented on a recent court ruling involving the modification of child or spousal support. "Non-custodial parents may not realize that support orders don't adjust just because their situation has altered," said Griffith, who's also a child custody lawyer. "A motion to modify your support order should be filed as soon as ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - We've all heard it: The Internet has flattened the world, allowing social networks to spring up overnight, independent of geography or socioeconomic status. Who needs face time with the people around you when you can email, text or tweet to and from almost anywhere in the world? Twitter, the social networking and microblogging site, is said to have more than 300 million users worldwide who follow, forward and respond to each other's 140-character tweets about anything and everything, 24/7. But MIT researchers who studied the growth of the newly hatched ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A brain cell type found where habits are formed and movement is controlled has receptors that work like computer processors to translate regular activities into habits, researchers report. "Habits, for better or worse, basically define who we are," said Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, Co-Director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at Georgia Health Sciences University. Habits also provide mental freedom and flexibility by enabling many activities to be on autopilot while the brain focuses on more urgent matters, he said. Research published in the journal Neuron ...

CouponRoo.Com, a leading discount coupon website in the USA, is taking the Internet by storm. The website is started by a college student, and quickly grew to include thousands of retailers. To date, it has included over ten thousand stores on the site. Discount shopping online On the Internet, price has always been transparent. In other words, buyers tend to go online to search and compare prices before making a purchase. Retailers are well aware of this fact. In order to capture new customers and retain existing ones, many have resorted to running attractive promotions. ...

Beer tested in a new study, including some brands labeled "low-gluten," contains levels of hordein, the form of gluten present in barley, that could cause symptoms in patients with celiac disease (CD), the autoimmune condition treated with a life-long gluten-free diet, scientists are reporting. The study, which weighs in on a controversy over the gluten content of beer, appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. Michelle Colgrave and colleagues explain that celiac disease (CD) affects more than 2 million people worldwide. Gluten, a protein found in foods and beverages ...

Ken Miller, President of Blue Pond Signs, announced today the availability of the 2012 custom signage line for business customers throughout the United States. As many companies seek to refresh their visual identities in the first quarter of the year, Blue Pond Signs streamlines the process of creating customized visual identities, from business signs to logos, in just four weeks. "Creating a customized corporate visual identity is an important element for companies who seek recognition in today's competitive marketplace" said Miller. "We offer a fast ...

Bacteria living in people's large intestine may slow down the activity of the "good" kind of fat tissue, a special fat that quickly burns calories and may help prevent obesity, scientists are reporting in a new study. The discovery, published in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, could shed light on ways to prevent obesity and promote weight loss, including possible microbial and pharmaceutical approaches, the authors said. Sandrine P. Claus, Jeremy K. Nicholson and colleagues explain that trillions of bacteria live in the large intestine of healthy people, where they ...

In a discovery that may help speed use of "cell therapy" — with normal cells or stem cells infused into the body to treat disease — scientists are reporting development of a way to deliver therapeutic human cells to diseased areas within the body using a simple magnetic effect. Their report appears in ACS' journal Langmuir. Rawil Fakhrullin and colleagues explain that cell therapy aims to replace damaged or diseased cells in the human body with normal cells or stem cells. To do so, medical personnel need a way to target these cells to diseased organs or tissues. So-called ...

WASHINGTON -- The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast series discusses the discovery that household washing machines seem to be a major source of so-called "microplastic" pollution -- bits of polyester and acrylic smaller than the head of a pin -- that researchers now have detected on ocean shorelines worldwide. In the podcast, Mark Anthony Browne, Ph.D., explains that the accumulation of microplastic debris in marine environments has raised health and safety concerns. The bits of plastic ...

Recently, the accuracy of current methods of pain assessment in babies have been called into question. New research from London-area hospitals and the University of Oxford measures brain activity in infants to better understand their pain response. As every parent knows, interpreting what a baby is feeling is often incredibly difficult. Currently, pain in infants is assessed using the premature infant pain profile (PIPP), which is based on behavioral and physiological body reactions, such as crying and facial expression. Though this is a useful measure, it is largely ...