(CHICAGO) -- A 40-year search for a gene that causes some one-celled sea creatures to flash at night and is also found in others that produce deadly red tides, has been successfully culminated by a group of scientists led by Thomas E. DeCoursey, PhD, professor of biophysics and physiology at Rush University Medical Center. The gene, discovered in a tiny marine organism called a dinoflagellate (Karlodinium veneficum), controls voltage-gated proton channels, which, in addition to triggering luminescence in certain single-cell sea creatures, activate many important biological ...

WASHINGTON, -- The combination of optical, electronic and mechanical effects occurring in devices and materials that have structure on the nanometer scale are being investigated by researchers around the world. These "collective phenomena" have applications as diverse as the generation of light, optical sensing, and information processing. To highlight the recent progress and trends in physics and applications in this area, the editors of the Optical Society's (OSA) (http://www.osa.org) open-access journal Optics Express (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe) today published ...

Rockville, MD – Results from a recent scientific study in the U.K. may change the way that healthcare professionals measure eye pressure and allow them to assess the risk of glaucoma with greater accuracy. Glaucoma is the second most common cause of irreversible loss of vision worldwide. The study, published in the Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science journal (Intraocular Pressure and Corneal Biomechanics in an Adult British Population -- The EPIC-Norfolk Eye Study), reports the distribution and causes of eye pressure -- medically termed intraocular pressure ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite called "TRMM" and NASA's Aqua satellite captured radar and temperature data that showed Tropical Storm Rina forming in the western Caribbean Sea yesterday. Today, Rina continues strengthening. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean to tropical depression eighteen and then to tropical storm Rina on October 23, 2011. The TRMM satellite flew over the forming tropical cyclone on October 23, 2011 at 1728 UTC (1:28 p.m. EDT). Data from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and ...

Sheraton Atlanta Perimeter Hotel North, located in Sandy Springs, GA, announces a new special savings package. Guests can experience all that Atlanta has to offer while escaping the rush of the city in one of the property's 36 executive club level rooms and suites. Enjoy the perks of staying on Club Level with: - Club Level Queen or King room from $99 per night - Club Level King Suite from $119 per night - Full access to the private Club Lounge which offer complimentary continental breakfast in the morning, beverages throughout the day, and evening hors d'oeuvres - ...

Demand for tickets to see veteran American rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers is expected to be high when they play three dates at London's O2 Arena this November as part of their first UK and Ireland tour since 2006. For fans visiting London for The O2 gigs which take place on Monday 7th, Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th November the advice given by London specialists LondonTown.com is to avoid travel chaos and book in at one of the London hotels close to the 20,000 capacity stadium in Greenwich, South East London. The band who has won 7 Grammy Awards and sold ...

TAHOE NATIONAL FOREST, Calif.—The reclusive American marten is getting even harder to find in the Sierra Nevada, according to a study by a team of researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University. A new study at the Sagehen Experimental Forest found that marten detections have dropped 60 percent since the 1980s—a decrease that may be caused by a degradation of the wooded areas in which they live, researchers say. Their findings appeared in the current issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management. "Previous work had revealed that marten populations ...

Whether it's parents, teachers, coaches, or family friends, there's no question that adults serve as powerful role models for youth as they transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Mentoring programs across the United States have tried to harness the power of positive role models in the hopes that relationships with an adult mentor will help to support kids' socioemotional and cognitive development. But are mentoring programs effective? And do all programs have equally positive effects? A new report in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal ...

Psychological scientist Guillermo Campitelli is a good chess player, but not a great one. "I'm not as good as I wanted," he says. He had an international rating but not any of the titles that chess players get, like Grandmaster and International Master. "A lot of people that practiced much less than me achieved much higher levels." Some of the players he coached became some of the best players in Argentina. "I always wondered: What's going on? Why did this happen?" Now a researcher at Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Australia, Campitelli studies practicing. He's ...

University of Illinois scientists report the first identification of a cellular mechanism linked to the toxicity of a major class of drinking water disinfection byproducts. This study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, suggests a possible connection to adverse health effects, including neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's. "I'm not implying that drinking disinfected water will give you Alzheimer's," said Michael Plewa, lead scientist and professor of genetics in the U of I Department of Crop Sciences. "Certainly, the disinfection of drinking water ...

SoloHealth (www.solohealth.com), a leader in self-service consumer healthcare technology, is pleased to announce the promotion of Stephen Kendig from Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations to Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. Reporting directly to CEO and Founder Bart Foster, Kendig takes the role during a time of tremendous growth for the company and will lead the day-to-day operations and strategic direction of SoloHealth, including overseeing the nationwide rollout of the highly anticipated SoloHealth Station this fall. During his four years ...

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have identified a number of stem rust-resistant wheat varieties and are retesting them to verify their resistance. Stem rust occurs worldwide wherever wheat is grown. Over a large area, losses from stem rust can be severe, ranging from 50 to 70 percent, and individual fields can be destroyed. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant pathologist Mike Bonman at the agency's Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho, and his colleagues screened more than 3,000 wheat landraces from the U.S. ...

HOUSTON - A research team led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered four new "ZIP codes" in their quest to map the vast blood vessel network of the human body. The study, published online the week of Oct. 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings science one step closer to the goal of using the vascular system to personalize cancer therapy, as well as fight obesity, heart disease and other disorders. Researchers also found that some addresses are shared in vasculature across the board instead of always ...

A study by researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco shows that rats given a popularly prescribed antidepressant during development exhibit brain abnormalities and behaviors characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. The findings suggest that taking a certain class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – SSRIs – during pregnancy might be one factor contributing to a dramatic rise in these developmental disorders in children. "We saw behaviors in the treated rats and neurological ...

Watching local TV news can lead to déjà vu. During the past decade, a growing number of local television stations have entered into agreements together – to share video footage, reporters, anchors and even full newscasts. A new report by the University of Delaware's Center for Community Research and Service looks at the impact of these possibly monopolistic agreements on local media markets and on the principles the federal government uses to regulate the broadcast industry: diversity, competition and localism. Danilo Yanich, author of the report and associate professor ...

1. Penny stocks cost a penny for a reason. While we all dream about investing in the next Microsoft or the next Home Depot, but the truth is, the odds of you finding that once in a decade success story are slim. These companies are either starting out or purchased a shell company because it was cheaper than an IPO. This doesn't make them a bad investment. 2. Trading volumes. Look for a consistent volume of shares being traded. Looking at the average volume can be misleading. If ABC trades 1 million shares today, and doesn't trade for the rest of the week, the ...

COLUMBIA, Mo.– Women living in rural areas face unique challenges concerning health and wellness issues. Now, an MU researcher has found that rural women are more likely than women living in cities to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, the most severe form of the disease. "The stage at which the cancer is diagnosed has a tremendous impact on the type of treatment, recovery and survivability," said Faustine Williams, a doctoral student in the Department of Rural Sociology in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. "Finding ways to identify and ...

STANFORD, Calif. - A tiny difference in the coding pattern of a single gene significantly affects the rate at which men's intellectual function drops with advancing age, investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System have learned. In a study to be published online Oct. 25 in Translational Psychiatry, the researchers tested the skills of experienced airplane pilots and found that having one version of the gene versus the other version doubled the rate at which the participants' performance declined over ...

CyberlinkASP, the leader in hosted virtual desktop solutions, today announced that it has expanded its data center facilities into London and will begin providing hosted virtual desktop services across the EMEA. CyberlinkASP will implement its turnkey virtual private cloud and Citrix based technologies to support the mission critical IT component(s) of firms across Europe. CyberlinkASP currently hosts, manages and supports virtual desktops for hundreds of SMB's and thousands of end users across the United States. CyberlinkASP's engineering staff, help desk and sophisticated ...

Vancouver – A Heart and Stroke Foundation study has found that women under age 55 fare worse than their male counterparts following a heart attack – and their health status declines more than that of their male counterparts after one month. The AMI55 study found that women between the ages of 20 and 55 had significantly worse physical limitations, more recurrences of chest pain, and worse quality of life than men one month after a heart attack – and, compared to their baseline scores, declined in the areas of physical limitations and recurrences of chest pain. Among men, ...

Vancouver – A type of medication known as angiotensin-receptor blockers could reduce risk of mortality in people with a heart disease called calcific aortic stenosis (AS) by 30 per cent over an eight-year period, Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher Dr. Philippe Pibarot told delegates at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress. The condition is currently managed with open heart surgery. "Our discovery shifts how we think about AS by looking at a new pathway which both prevents and reverses calcification," says Dr. Pibarot, a professor at Laval University and Canada Research ...

Vancouver – Atherosclerosis – or buildup of fat in the walls of arteries − is thought of as a disorder of older people but it affects a large number of young men and women, according to a new Heart and Stroke Foundation study. "The proportion of young, apparently healthy adults who are presumably 'the picture of health' who already have atherosclerosis is staggering," says Dr. Eric Larose, an interventional cardiologist at the Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec and an assistant professor at Université Laval. Atherosclerosis can eventually ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---They've been stereotyped as a bunch of insecure, angst-ridden, underachievers. But most members of Generation X are leading active, balanced and happy lives, according to a long-term University of Michigan survey. "They are not bowling alone," said political scientist Jon Miller, author of The Generation X Report. "They are active in their communities, mainly satisfied with their jobs, and able to balance work, family, and leisure." Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The study, funded ...

DALLAS – Oct. 25, 2011 – A simple blood test could someday quantify a smoker's lung toxicity and danger of heart disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. Nearly one in five adults in the U.S. smoke, and smoking-related medical expenses and loss of productivity exceeds $167 billion annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Levels of a lung protein found in the blood of smokers could indicate their risk of dangerous plaque buildup in blood vessels, said Dr. Anand Rohatgi, assistant professor of internal medicine at ...

Following last month's successful acquisition of eat.shop guides, leading online global travel network TravelShark has rebranded the popular international series of hyper-local travel-planning books as rather. The company also announced the release of eight new rather books, including rather paris, rather new york city and rather los angeles, in time for holiday shopping at the new rather.com. The new rather offers even more compelling photos and unbiased, curated reviews of unique and unexpected dining and shopping venues in the world's finest cities. TravelShark soon ...