Contact: Jeff Haskins jhaskins@burnesscommunications.com 66-815-476-685 Michelle Geis mgeis@burnesscommunications.com 301-280-5712 Burness Communications Rapid climate change threatens Asia's Rice Bowl Researchers focus on innovations to adapt agriculture to wild swings in climate extremes, as vividly manifested by Southeast Asia's catastrophic flood-drought cycles Bangkok -- As Asia's monsoon season begins, leading climate specialists and agricultural scientists warned today that rapid climate change and its potential to intensify droughts and floods could ...

If you have seen a child just eat an entire ice-cream, and she begs you to buy her one, what will your reaction be? Here we ask if monkeys understand the physical needs of others. In order to provide help or share food, it would be useful for them to know what others want or need. Such understanding is probably simpler than an understanding of the other's state of knowledge, known as Theory-of-Mind (ToM). Sensitivity to wants and needs appears earlier than ToM in the development of children. While there is some evidence for ToM in the great apes, such as chimpanzees, ...

Trying to imagine what your breasts will look like after breast augmentation surgery can be nearly impossible. While an online tool will not give you an exact idea of what you will look like, it can be helpful in determining the size and shape of breast implants you are interested in. Some of your breast enlargement options will include types of implants, location of incisions, and placement of implants. The following online breast augmentation visualization tools can be useful in gaining a better idea of what these options may do for you: - ReShapr.Com - LoveYourLook.Com These ...

Using a combination of powerful observatories in space and on the ground, astronomers have observed a violent collision between two galaxy clusters in which so-called normal matter has been wrenched apart from dark matter through a violent collision between two galaxy clusters.

 The newly discovered galaxy cluster is called DLSCL J0916.2+2951. It is similar to the Bullet Cluster, the first system in which the separation of dark and normal matter was observed, but with some important differences. The newly discovered system has been nicknamed the "Musket ...

There are several reasons trucking companies employ double or triple trailers. One of the most frequently cited reasons is fuel efficiency. Some industry studies have shown that single cabs pulling double or triple trailers eventually cost less in fuel than having multiple cabs pull single loads. Increased efficiency is another reason trucking companies may wish to have a driver pull more than one trailer. If a driver can make one stop at a large commercial location, or make multiple stops at different locations in one haul, it can lead to faster delivery times. Increasing ...

Pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers often place profit before people. When news of defective medical products reaches these companies, they are often slow to react. This is because they anticipate more people buying their product and increasing their bottom line, and are gambling on a majority of these people not sustaining any injury. Inaction on the part of medical device manufacturers may grow their bottom line, but the cost to victims is often tragic. Increased medical expenses, untold pain and suffering, and even death can result from defective ...

URBANA – A new University of Illinois study contains a warning for obese women who are planning pregnancies. Even if they eat a healthy diet when they are pregnant, their babies will develop in an unhealthy environment that places the infants at risk for future health problems. "We can see fat sequestered in the placentas of obese mothers when it should be going to the baby to support its growth. The nutrient supply region in the placenta of an obese mother is half the size of that of a normal-weight mother, even when both are eating the same healthy diet," said Yuan-Xiang ...

URBANA – Band fertilizer placement may cause non-uniform distribution in the soil. Why does this matter? Because when fertilizer is unevenly distributed, it may not be possible to use traditional sampling strategies to measure whole-field fertility, said assistant professor of crop sciences Fabián Fernández. No recent published studies have looked at this problem. Fernández has conducted research to determine potassium and phosphorous distribution in no-till and strip-till soils and to develop improved sampling procedures for measuring field fertility. The problem, ...

Today, in Marion County, Florida, in a case styled Glenn and Kimberly Trabing v. Tower Hill Select Insurance Company, Circuit Judge Frances King denied the most recent attempts by Tower Hill Select Insurance Company to force an insured to enter into a contract before payment for subsurface repairs will be paid. Although the insurance policy in question indicated that Tower Hill may withhold coverage for subsurface repairs (e.g. grouting and underpinning) until these repairs are commenced, Ted Corless of the Tampa-based law firm Corless Associates, in conjunction with ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Overuse injuries –found most often in low-contact sports that involve long training sessions or where the same movement is repeated numerous times – make up nearly 30 percent of all injuries sustained by collegiate athletes. And a majority of overuse injuries (62 percent) occurred in females athletes, according to a new study published in the current edition of the Journal of Athletic Training, the National Athletic Trainers' Association scientific publication. "Overuse injuries may present not only physical challenges but also psychological ones ...

For patients and their families, there are few areas in medicine more frustrating and unnerving than the issue of a misdiagnoses. To have availed themselves of the best modern medicine has to offer, and still suffer the bad result of a diagnostic error, seems supremely unfair, especially if it results in their death, leaving their family with the consolation of a wrongful death suit. Doctors are Not Infallible A recent study points out that 47 percent of doctors encounter diagnostic errors in the practice at least monthly. And these errors are not without consequence, ...

The Chicago area is reeling after yet another teenager was killed in a train accident. The fifteen year old boy was walking along the tracks early in the morning, likely on his way to school. The exact cause of death remains unknown and police continue to investigate. Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths related to train accidents are not rare. A pedestrian can be killed when walking along the tracks or can be pulled under a passing train. Additionally, train and car collisions at track intersections occur throughout Chicago. Whether used to ship goods or for public transportation, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study from the University of Illinois concludes that learning-by-doing, stimulated by increased ethanol production, played an important role in inducing technological progress in the corn ethanol industry. It also suggests that biofuel policies, which induced ethanol production beyond the free-market level, served to increase the competitiveness of the industry over time. The study, co-written by Madhu Khanna, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois, and Xiaoguang Chen, of the U. of I. Energy Biosciences Institute, quantifies ...

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) new Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program is designed to improve overall safety performance by allowing greater scrutiny of truck companies and their drivers. The program uses "compliance, enforcement, and remediation" to improve safety on the highways. Truck companies and their drivers are required to comply with the FMCSA's regulations, when they fail, enforcement procedures are applied and remediation is used to correct drivers or companies. Need for a New Evaluation Process The CSA ...

The thought of a baby getting stuck during delivery naturally brings extreme fear to the mother and her family, and high stress for the doctor and medical staff. On rare occasions, after the baby's head has emerged from the birth canal, one or both of his or her shoulders becomes wedged behind the mother's pelvic bones, bringing the delivery to a frightening standstill. Physically, the shoulders normally rotate during delivery to pass the pelvic bones at a certain complementary angle and place. When the shoulders are too big or the mother's pelvic area is too narrow ...

URBANA -- Crop yield can be improved by ensuring adequate nutrient availability. But how should you place the fertilizer and what cropping system gives the best yields? Research conducted by University of Illinois assistant professor of crop sciences Fabián Fernández, professor of crop sciences Emerson Nafziger, and graduate student Bhupinder Farmaha looked at how tillage, and phosphorus and potassium placement and rates, affected the distribution of soybean roots and the levels of water and nutrients in the soil. "Strip-till produces higher yields than the no-till ...

Attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women, according to Penn State researchers, who identified two types of women -- one experiences more hot flashes after physical activity, while the other experiences fewer. "The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes," said Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology. "These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis." Women who ...

A 30-year old New York construction worker died and four others were injured when a crane collapsed and fell into Site J of the subway's 7 line extension project, reported the New York Post (4/3/2012). http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mta_suspends_no_train_line_extension_BwKn6J1Hg6F6bUmcgMvnuJ#ixzz1r5klcoXe Fire Department of New York officials said the crane's boom came apart in two pieces, reported ABC News (4/4/2012). http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nyc-officials-dead-hurt-crane-accident-16068773 This construction accident was New York City's ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida astronomers have found compelling evidence for two low-mass planets orbiting the nearby star Fomalhaut, just 25 light years from Earth. Twice as massive as the sun and 20 times brighter, Fomalhaut is surrounded by a ring of dust and debris, making it a favorite system for astronomers to study and a natural laboratory for testing planet formation theories. In 2008, images of Fomalhaut taken by the Hubble Space Telescope led to the discovery of "Fomalhaut b," the first extra solar planet to be directly detected in visible light. ...

Scientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have identified similarities and differences among regions of the human brain, among the brains of human individuals, and between humans and mice by analyzing the expression of approximately 1,000 genes in the brain. The study, published online today in the journal Cell, sheds light on the human brain in general and also serves as an introduction to what the associated publicly available dataset can offer the scientific community. This study reveals a high degree of similarity among human individuals. Only 5% of the ...

A 25-year old New York construction worker died when a house collapsed in Brooklyn, reported the New York Daily News (4/3/2012). http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/1-worker-critically-injured-4-hurt-brooklyn-building-collapse-article-1.1055111#ixzz1qzzFF4sT "Of the many hazards that can happen on a construction site, a building collapse is one of the most catastrophic construction accidents that can take place," said David Perecman, a construction accident lawyer in New York with over 30 years of experience providing falling debris construction ...

This press release is available in German. The transmission of knowledge to the next generation is a key feature of human evolution. In particular, humans tend to copy behaviour that is demonstrated by many other individuals. Chimpanzees and orangutans, two of our closest living relatives, also socially pass on traditional behaviour and culture from one generation to another. Whether and how this process resembles the human one is still largely unknown. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for ...

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and several other civil rights advocacy groups recently filed a lawsuit of great interest to New York civil rights violation lawyers at The Perecman Firm and other defenders of civil rights. The NYCLU lawsuit (No.12-CIV-2274) was filed against the New York City Police Department. It claims officers violated civil rights and challenges a controversial stop-and-frisk type program in private rental apartment buildings called "Operation Clean Halls." http://www.nyclu.org/news/class-action-lawsuit-challenges-nypd-patrols-of-private-apartment-buildings http://www.nyclu.org/files/releases/Clean_Halls_complaint_3.28.12.PDF ...

Sleep apnea, a condition in which the narrowing of the upper airway results in poor, disrupted sleep, not only results in a bad night's sleep, but also leads to fatigued drivers. In fact, some believe that when it comes to driving, sleep apnea may present as great a danger as too much alcohol. For this reason, the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), in conjunction with the American Transportation Research Institute of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), will begin screening commercial driver's license (CDL) holders thought to be susceptible ...

Los Angeles, CA (April 12, 2012) Police officers are always trying to control the misconduct of those who are on parole in order to control crime in the community, but what types of behaviors land them back in jail and what can law enforcement officials do about it? A recent article in the Journal of Correctional Health Care (JCHC), published by SAGE, discusses how to target the most common risky behaviors among specific groups of parolees in order to lower crime in the community. Researchers David Wyatt Seal, Michelle Parisot, and Wayne DiFranceisco interviewed 126 ...