Online parcel delivery specialist Parcel2Go has applauded the drive and will to succeed of the thousands of people across the UK who decide to start their own businesses. In the face of rising unemployment across Britain and the threat of a double-dip recession, entrepreneurs of all kinds are grasping the opportunity to take control of their own future. Figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics showed the number of people registered as self-employed in the UK increased by 101,000 during the three months to November 2011, representing a 3.5 per ...

Edward Mills of the University of Ottawa, Canada and colleagues argue in this week's PLoS Medicine that the HIV/AIDS response in Africa needs a more balanced approach to gender, so that both men and women are involved in HIV treatment and prevention. Traditionally, targeted efforts at reducing the impact of the HIV epidemic have focused on women and children while men have received considerably less attention. The authors say: "The epidemiological evidence is accumulating, and indicates that males in sub-Saharan Africa are not accessing HIV services as often as their ...

The average person in the UK has had their main bank account for more than 20 years, according to new research from Halifax. In figures that demonstrate the average person's reluctance to move bank account providers, the bank found that: - 1 in 10 adults still use the account that they opened between the ages of 1 and 15 years old as their main account today - A third of adults opened their main current account between the ages of 16-24 - Over a quarter of people (26%) have held their current main account for more than 26 years Parent and student account define ...

CHICAGO – Administration of routine infant immunizations with a vaccine for serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis, a bacterium that is a cause of serious disease such as sepsis and meningitis, was effective against meningococcal strains and produced minimal interference with the response to the routine vaccinations, according to a study in the February 8 issue of JAMA. Certain serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis (MenB) vaccines proved effective in clinical trials and controlled a clonal MenB outbreak in New Zealand; however, the high strain specificity of these vaccines ...

CHICAGO – Among postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, increasing age was associated with a higher risk of death from breast cancer, according to a study in the February 8 issue of JAMA. "Breast cancer is the leading contributor to cancer incidence and cancer mortality in women worldwide, with 1,383,500 new cases in 2008. In the United States in 2008, 41 percent of these women were aged 65 years or older at diagnosis. Because breast cancer incidence increases with increasing age, changing demographics and continuously increasing life expectancy ...

CHICAGO – Although some data have suggested a possible increased risk of intussusception (when a portion of the small or large intestine slides forward into itself, like a telescope) after administration of the pentavalent rotavirus vaccine in infants, an analysis that included almost 800,000 doses administered to U.S. infants found no increased risk of this condition following vaccination, according to a study in the February 8 issue of JAMA. "In 1999, the rhesus tetravalent rotavirus vaccine (RRV, Rotashield) was withdrawn from the U.S. market due to a significantly ...

CHICAGO – Short-term use of the antibiotic cefpodoxime for the treatment of women with uncomplicated cystitis (bladder infection) did not meet criteria for noninferiority for achieving clinical cure compared with ciprofloxacin, a drug in the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics for which there have been concerns about overuse and a resulting increase in resistance rates, according to a study in the February 8 issue of JAMA. The criteria for noninferiority was if the efficacy of cefpodoxime had been shown to be within a pre-specified margin of 10 percent of the efficacy ...

For all those who have wondered where they'd be without their mothers, a study reported in the February Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, puts a whole new spin on the question. Mice whose mothers pass along a mutant copy of a single imprinted gene can't keep themselves warm and die soon after leaving the comfort of the nest. The findings also reveal that the babies require a second round of heat-generating brown fat to survive. "When that second wave is delayed, it gets them in the end," said Anne Ferguson-Smith of the University of Cambridge. The findings ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Parkinson's disease researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease, which afflicts at least 500,000 Americans and for which there is no cure. The results are published in the current issue of Nature Communications. The UB findings reveal potential new drug targets for the disease as well as a screening platform for discovering new treatments that might mimic the protective functions of parkin. UB has applied for patent protection on the screening platform. "This is the first time that human ...

The aviation accident attorneys at Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman are representing the families of the two men killed in Robinson Helicopter Company's first R66 crash which occurred on July 12, 2011 near Flandes, Colombia. Jose Ricardo Cabrera Killed in the crash, was the owner of the R66 aircraft, Juan Pablo Gaviria, former president of the Colombian Civil Air Patrol, and Jose Ricardo Cabrera, his dear friend and a skilled helicopter pilot. The R66 crashed shortly after take-off from Girardot Airport in Colombia. According to the National Transportation Safety ...

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 8, 2012) -- A protein kinase known as ROCK1 can exacerbate an important process called fission in the mitochondria, the power plants of cells, leading to diabetic kidney disease, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online today in the journal Cell Metabolism. (ROCK1 stands for (Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 1.) "We have shown the connection between ROCK1 and the progression to kidney disease through the effect of ROCK1 on the mitochondria," said Dr. Farhad R. Danesh, association professor ...

Visitors to Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building may have experienced a curious acoustic feature that allows a person to whisper softly at one side of the cavernous, half-domed room and for another on the other side to hear every syllable. Sound is whisked around the semi-circular perimeter of the room almost without flaw. The phenomenon is known as a whispering gallery. In a paper published in Nature Communications, a team of engineers at Stanford describes how it has created tiny hollow spheres of photovoltaic nanocrystalline-silicon and harnessed physics to do ...

While epilepsy surgery is a safe and effective intervention for seizure control, medical therapy remains the more prominent treatment option for those with epilepsy. However, a new 26-year study reveals that following epilepsy surgery, nearly half of participants were free of disabling seizures and 80% reported better quality of life than before surgery. Findings from this study—the largest long-term study to date—are now available in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE). More than 50 million ...

### Additional authors on the study include: Elie Ghanem, MD and Bahar Adeli, BA, both with the Rothman Institute at Jefferson. About Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals (TJUH) are dedicated to excellence in patient care, patient safety and the quality of the healthcare experience. Consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report among the nation's top hospitals, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, established in 1825, has over 900 licensed acute care beds with major programs in a wide range of clinical specialties. ...

Patients who have their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructed by surgeons who have performed less than 60 surgeries are roughly four to five times more likely to undergo a subsequent ACL reconstruction, according to a study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery. The study also showed that participating in a subspecialty orthopedic fellowship-training program did not improve the learning curve of young surgeons performing ACL reconstructions. The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, held Feb 7-11. "Conventional ...

Complex systems are prone to communication breakdowns, unless there is a concerted effort to properly share necessary information. Unfortunately, the failure to communicate is all too prevalent in the delivery of medical care. Dr. Peter Pronovost, a leading patient-safety experts at Johns Hopkins University, estimates diagnostic errors are responsible for the deaths of 40,000 to 80,000 hospitalized patients every year. That is a shockingly high number. With so many errors being made, injured people naturally turn to the legal system seeking proper compensation. And ...

Geneva, Switzerland: The first European Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for the diagnosis and management of Wilson's disease are published today by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) on the EASL website -- www.easl.eu.(1) Developed to assist physicians and healthcare providers in the clinical decision making process, the guidelines describe best practice for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with Wilson's disease -- a rare genetic(2) disorder that, if left untreated, is fatal. Approximately one in 30,000 people worldwide are affected ...

Stripping some mouth bacteria of their access key to gangs of other pathogenic oral bacteria could help prevent gum disease and tooth loss. The study, published in the journal Microbiology suggests that this bacterial access key could be a drug target for people who are at high risk of developing gum disease. Oral bacteria called Treponema denticola frequently gang up in communities with other pathogenic oral bacteria to produce destructive dental plaque. This plaque, made up of bacteria, saliva and food debris, is a major cause of bleeding gums and gum disease. Later ...

It appears that Arizona Governor Janet Brewer's attempt to block the imposition of Proposition 203 has come to an end. Last week, a Maricopa County judge dismissed the lawsuit that sought to block the portion of the law that allowed state-run marijuana dispensaries. According to a report by the Arizona Republic, Superior Court judge Richard Gama ruled that the state did not have any discretion in whether the voter-supported initiative could proceed. The law, named the Arizona Medicinal Marijuana Act (AMMA) legalizes marijuana use for people with chronic or debilitating ...

Respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia, are the most common cause of death in children under the age of five. In a study looking at children given standard antibiotic therapy, new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows how zinc supplements drastically improved children's chances of surviving the infection. The increase in survival due to zinc (on top of antibiotics) was even greater for HIV infected children. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, 350 children, aged from six months to five years old, ...

An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology. The researchers found they could record information using only heat - a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too. The results of the research, which was led by the University of York's Department of Physics, are reported in the February edition of Nature ...

A surge of foreclosure filings over the past two months are threatening homeowners in Chicago. For almost a year foreclosures were on hold while mortgage companies sorted out the mess created by the robo-signing scandal. In November 2011, one in every 579 homes was in foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, a company monitoring foreclosure properties. In Illinois alone, one in every 427 properties was in foreclosure in November 2011, placing it fourth in the nation in the number of foreclosures. Cook County had the highest number of foreclosures pending in the state at ...

Charlottesville, VA (February 7, 2012). Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center's VCU Massey Cancer Center and Harold F. Young Neurosurgical Center (Richmond, VA) and Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) have discovered that suppression of Wilms tumor 1 protein (WT1) results in downregulation of CD97 gene expression in three glioblastoma cell lines and reduces the characteristic invasiveness exhibited by glial tumor cells. This finding is announced in the article, "Novel report of expression and function of CD97 in malignant gliomas: correlation ...

Cleveland -- The use of padded headgear and gloves reduces the impact that fighters absorb from hits to the head, according to newly published research from Cleveland Clinic. In their biomechanics lab at Cleveland Clinic's Lutheran Hospital, the researchers replicated hook punches to the head using a crash test dummy and a pendulum. The impacts were measured under five padding configurations: without headgear or boxing gloves; with headgear and boxing gloves; with headgear but without boxing gloves; with boxing gloves but without headgear; and with mixed martial arts-style ...

Counties and parishes with a greater concentration of small, locally-owned businesses have healthier populations — with lower rates of mortality, obesity and diabetes — than do those that rely on large companies with "absentee" owners, according to a national study by sociologists at LSU and Baylor University. "What stands out about this research is that we often think of the economic benefits and job growth that small business generates, but we don't think of the social benefits to small communities," said Troy C. Blanchard, Ph.D., lead author and associate professor ...