Every year, power plants in the U.S. produce about 140 million tons of coal ash. The substance, otherwise known as "fly ash," is an inorganic byproduct of burning coal, and is usually disposed of in landfills and settlement ponds. West Virginia is home to more than 20 coal ash storage sites; all of them pose a risk of exposure to hazardous substances. Yet, the debate over what to do with fly ash is not as open and closed as it may appear at first glance, and lawmakers in Washington are struggling to find common ground on the issue. Benefits and Risks of ...

Millions of pre-diabetic Americans may be at increased risk of future stroke, say researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in a new meta-analysis of epidemiological studies, but the precise degree of that threat is confounded by differing medical definitions and factors that remain unknown or unmeasured. "The immediate implication of our findings is that people with pre-diabetes should be aware they are at increased risk of stroke, and that this condition is frequently associated with one or more major risk factors for cardiovascular disease," ...

A bill that recently passed both legislative houses in Illinois will prohibit convicted child sex offenders from participating in holiday activities involving children, if signed by the Governor. While this bill is very specific, it adds further requirements for registered sex offenders in Illinois, and puts additional limits on how they must live following a criminal conviction. Illinois Sex Offender Bill The recent bill, SB3579, was introduced in February of this year and sponsored by Senator Kirk Dillard. If signed, it will amend the Illinois Criminal Code by making ...

URBANA –Teachers learn a lot about how to teach curriculum in college, but they don't get much training in helping very young children learn to handle frustration, anger, and excitement, skills that kids need for kindergarten readiness, said Nancy McElwain, a University of Illinois professor of human development and family studies who conducted a study on the topic. "When teachers aren't trained to respond to emotional outbursts in supportive ways, they often fall back on responses that reflect the way they were raised and whether they feel comfortable with their own ...

HIV superinfection, when a person with HIV could acquire a second, new strain of HIV, may occur as often as initial HIV infection in the general population in Uganda, a study suggests. Since researchers demonstrated more than a decade ago that a person infected with HIV could subsequently acquire a second, new strain of HIV, there has been little agreement in the scientific community as to how often HIV superinfection occurs. Previous studies have found HIV superinfection to be relatively frequent among individuals who engaged in high-risk behaviors, but the rate of superinfection ...

Nursing homes are responsible for the care and comfort of those who cannot take care of themselves. Unfortunately, all too often nursing home patients become victims of abuse and neglect at the very hands of those entrusted to watch over them. The statistics on nursing home abuse are shocking, making it ever more important for family members and friends to ensure that nursing homes treat their loved ones well. Examples of Preventable Abuse Torrington Health and Rehabilitation Center in Torrington, Connecticut, was fined $510 and ordered to implement a corrective ...

A team of researchers at the IRCM led by Dr. André Veillette made an important breakthrough in the field of immunology, which will be published online today by the scientific journal Immunity. The scientists explained a poorly understood molecular mechanism associated with a human immune disorder known as XLP disease or Duncan's syndrome. "We studied the SAP molecule, which plays a critical role in multiple different types of immune cells," says Dr. Veillette, Director of the Molecular Oncology research unit at the IRCM. "More specifically, we wanted to understand why ...

The quantum computer is a futuristic machine that could operate at speeds even more mind-boggling than the world's fastest super-computers. Research involving physicist Mike Thewalt of Simon Fraser University offers a new step towards making quantum computing a reality, through the unique properties of highly enriched and highly purified silicon. Quantum computers right now exist pretty much in physicists' concepts, and theoretical research. There are some basic quantum computers in existence, but nobody yet can build a truly practical one—or really knows how. Such ...

Social Security Disability benefits are designed to aid those who are unable to work due to an injury, disease or other medical condition. Although the application process may appear easy after browsing the Social Security Administration's (SSA) website, many people who meet the required qualifications and should receive benefits are often initially denied. In fact, initial claims for disability benefits are denied 65 percent of the time. There are ways to fight a social security disability denial. Unfortunately, although an appeals process is available, it can take ...

Results of a preliminary experiment conducted at the University of Illinois indicate that it may be possible to select pigs that can make efficient use of energy in less expensive feed ingredients, thus reducing diet costs. Less expensive feed is usually higher in fiber than the corn-soy diets typically used in U.S. swine production, explained Hans H. Stein, professor of animal sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, the white breeds that are used in commercial pork production use only about 40 percent of the insoluble fiber. "If you can increase ...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) superinfection may be as common as initial HIV infection and is not limited to high risk-populations, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In the first large-scale study of HIV superinfection in a general heterosexual population, researchers examined the rate of superinfection among a community of sub-Saharan adults. HIV superinfection occurs when an HIV-infected individual acquires a new viral strain that ...

Several weeks ago, Neufeld, Kleinberg & Pinkiert was approached by another law firm. This other law firm represented a man who was injured when an old wooden set of stairs (connecting a yacht to the dock) collapsed as the man was disembarking from the vessel. The owner of the boat had been previously notified of the stair / gangplank's shoddy condition, but elected to avoid making any repairs or replacements. The man was significantly injured. Knowing of David Kleinberg's reputation as a relentless, yet entertaining and incisive advocate in the courtroom, the other ...

Nursing homes that foster an environment in which workers feel they are valued contributors to a team of caregivers provide better care to their residents. That is the conclusion of a study out this month in the journal Health Services Research. "We know from other fields of medicine that teamwork – the relationship between coworkers that facilitates decision making and care coordination – plays an important role in the quality of care," said Helena Temkin-Greener, Ph.D., lead author of the study and professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine ...

A team of researchers, including scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), discovered a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath ice-covered Arctic waters. Until now, sea ice was thought to block sunlight and limit the growth of microscopic marine plants living under the ice. The amount of phytoplankton growing in this under-ice bloom was four times greater than the amount found in neighboring ice-free waters. The bloom extended laterally more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) underneath the ice pack, where ocean and ice physics combined to create a phenomenon ...

In hospitals throughout Illinois and the rest of the United States, about one in every 6,000 surgical patients faces a common complication: Surgeons mistakenly sew up a patient while leaving a foreign object inside the surgical site, often a surgical sponge. The consequences of this surgical error can be painful and even deadly, because the body reacts unfavorably to a foreign object. For example, one victim suffered increasing pain after abdominal surgery, complaining repeatedly to his doctors until they finally reopened his incision five months later and discovered ...

HOUSTON -- (June 7, 2012) -- Researchers from Rice University and UCLA unveiled a new data-encoding scheme this week that slashes more than 30 percent of the energy needed to write data onto new memory cards that use "phase-change memory" (PCM) -- a competitor to flash memory that has big backing from industry heavyweights. The breakthrough was presented at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco by researchers from Rice University's Adaptive Computing and Embedded Systems (ACES) Laboratory. PCM uses the same type of materials as those used ...

HOUSTON -- (June 7, 2012) -- Thanks to a little serendipity, researchers at Rice University have created a tiny coaxial cable that is about a thousand times smaller than a human hair and has higher capacitance than previously reported microcapacitors. The nanocable, which is described this week in Nature Communications, was produced with techniques pioneered in the nascent graphene research field and could be used to build next-generation energy-storage systems. It could also find use in wiring up components of lab-on-a-chip processors, but its discovery is owed partly ...

Alex Membrillo, the co-founder of Cardinal Web Solutions, an Atlanta Internet Marketing firm, was recently featured in an article for Entrepreneur.com. Written by Lambeth Hochwald, the piece, "5 Ways to Make Sweet Music for Your Business," was published on May 29, 2012. It discusses how music can be used to positively influence sales and motivate staff. In the article Mr. Membrillo explains how Cardinal Web Solutions (CWS) uses music to energize employees, encourage innovative ideas, and recognize achievements. "In the ever changing world of Internet ...

SAN FRANCISCO – June 7, 2012 – A simple eye test may someday offer an effective way to identify patients who are at high risk for stroke, say researchers at the University of Zurich. They showed that a test called ocular pulse amplitude (OPA) can reliably detect carotid artery stenosis (CAS), a condition that clogs or blocks the arteries that feed the front part of the brain. It's a known risk factor for stroke. The OPA test could be performed by ophthalmologists – physicians who treat eye diseases – during routine exams. The study, which is published in the June issue ...

NEWPORT, Ore. – When debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan began making its way toward the West Coast of the United States, there were fears of possible radiation and chemical contamination as well as costly cleanup. But a floating dock that unexpectedly washed ashore in Newport this week and has been traced back to the Japanese disaster has brought with it a completely different threat – invasive species. Scientists at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center said the cement float contains about 13 pounds of organisms per square foot, ...

Do rebelliousness, emotional control, toughness and thrill-seeking still make up the essence of coolness? Can performers James Dean and Miles Davis still be considered the models of cool? Research led by a University of Rochester Medical Center psychologist and published by the Journal of Individual Differences has found the characteristics associated with coolness today are markedly different than those that generated the concept of cool. "When I set out to find what people mean by coolness, I wanted to find corroboration of what I thought coolness was," said Ilan ...

7 June 2012: Element Six, the world leader in synthetic diamond supermaterials, working in partnership with academics in Harvard University, California Institute of Technology and Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, has used its Element Six single crystal synthetic diamond grown by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) to demonstrate the capability of quantum bit memory to exceed one second at room temperature. This study demonstrated the ability of synthetic diamond to provide the read-out of a quantum bit which had preserved its spin polarisation for several minutes and ...

Find Me Gluten Free, the most downloaded gluten-free restaurant and business finder app for iPhone and Android announces partnership with Brandy Wendler, Mrs. Alaska International 2012 to create awareness for the Celiac Disease and Gluten Free Community. Find Me Gluten Free rates businesses on how gluten-free friendly they are, making it easier to find a restaurant which users can be confident will take preparing a gluten-free meal seriously, along with serving as a brand-finder at stores nationwide. Brandy Wendler was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2008. It was ...

The NationaLease Spring Maintenance Managers Meeting in Greenville, SC, in May provided attendees with a stimulating mix of technology, product, and professional education, as well as a strong measure of motivation and inspiration provided by its keynote speaker, Jay Blake, racing's only blind race crew chief. The four-day event also included a ceremony announcing NationaLease's Exceptional Service Award winners, which are NationaLease member companies that provided particularly outstanding reciprocal road service to fellow members throughout the year. "This year's ...

University of Notre Dame network physicists Mária Ercsey-Ravasz and Zoltán Toroczkai of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications, in collaboration with food science experts, have recently published a rigorous analysis of the international food-trade network that shows the network's vulnerability to the fast spread of contaminants as well as the correlation between known food poisoning outbreaks and the centrality of countries on the network. Together with food science experts József Baranyi, from the Institute of Food Research in the U.K., and ...