While you are out enjoying your holiday barbeques with the family, the offices of Christopher J. Shea would like to remind you that sobriety checkpoints will be in full affect during this holiday weekend. Avoid the 8 will be in enforcement for the Independence Day weekend, July 1 through July 4. Avoid the 8 is a campaign that brings multiple law enforcement agencies together to catch drivers who are under the influence. Hundreds of drivers have been arrested as part of the Avoid the 8 DUI campaign. This campaign peeks during the holidays and the Fourth of July weekend ...

Young babies' brains are already specially attuned to the sounds of human voices and emotions, according to a report published online on June 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Three- to seven-month-old infants showed more activation in a part of the brain when they heard emotionally neutral human sounds, such as coughing, sneezing, or yawning, than when they heard the familiar sounds of toys or water. That activity appeared in an area of the temporal lobe known in adults for its role in processing human vocalizations. The babies also showed greater response ...

Although our body's defense mechanisms are usually capable of detecting and destroying many types of pathogens, some viruses are able to evade the immune system and make us sick. In particular, "retroviruses," such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), are notorious for eluding host immune defenses and causing disease. Now, a new study published by Cell Press online on June 30th in the journal Immunity identifies a key virus-sensing mechanism that is necessary for a successful immune response against infection with this particularly deadly type of virus. The research may ...

Researchers have been investigating the connection between fifth century Himalayan instruments used in religious ceremonies and modern physics. In a study published today, 1 July 2011, in IOP Publishing's journal Nonlinearity, researchers have captured high speed images of the dynamics of fluid-filled Tibetan bowls and quantified how droplets are propelled from the water's surface as the bowls are excited. The first of five videos demonstrating the intriguing dynamics can be seen here http://youtu.be/oob8zENYt0g A Tibetan bowl, generally made from a bronze alloy ...

Researchers have developed a new strategy to improve the outcome of genome-wide association (GWA) studies. GWA studies involve rapidly scanning markers across the genomes of many people. By doing this, scientists can look for the association between certain genetic markers or variants within the population, and a particular trait, including disease. However, the challenge is to take these initial association signals and identify the functional DNA changes and their molecular consequences. This is an important step in translating these findings into clinical benefits. The ...

DURHAM, N.C. – A Duke University graduate student has found a way to double the battery life of mobile devices – such as smartphones or laptop computers – by making changes to WiFi technology. WiFi is a popular wireless technology that helps users download information from the Internet. Such downloads, including pictures, music and video streaming, can be a major drain of battery. The energy drain is especially severe in the presence of other WiFi devices in the neighborhood. In such cases, each device has to "stay awake" before it gets its turn to download a small ...

National church and home insurance specialist Congregational & General today announced it had appointed PR and Social Media agency Umpf to provide PR support and raise awareness of key campaigns across the UK. Umpf, which won the account following a competitive three-way pitch in May against incumbent agency Lucre and Golley Slater, will focus its efforts on highlighting Congregational's key products and services, whilst also spearheading a rolling programme of media campaigns across traditional, digital and social media channels. Congregational, which specialises ...

"Goat plague," or peste des petits ruminants (PPR), is threatening global food security and poverty alleviation in the developing world, say leading veterinarians and animal health experts in this week's Veterinary Record. They call on the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to turn their attention now to ridding the world of the PPR virus, which carries a very high risk of death among infected animals. The call follows the formal announcement this week by the FAO that a related virus, rinderpest, better known ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The discovery that a bacterial species in the Australian Tammar wallaby gut is responsible for keeping the animal's methane emissions relatively low suggests a potential new strategy may exist to try to reduce methane emissions from livestock, according to a new study. Globally, livestock are the largest source of methane from human-related activities, and are the third-largest source of this greenhouse gas in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Wallabies and other marsupials – mammals like the kangaroo that develop ...

Our 2011 Chianti reps, Calvin (or "Calvino" as he's known locally!) and Karen Yates, share some of their findings with you! Favourite fact Every Saturday in the summer, the Etruscan hill town of Volterra holds a "Notte Bianca" where locals dress in either black or white and dance to music in the streets. Apparently there are free drinks for anyone wearing all white! Both our walking and cycling holidays start and end in Volterra. Famous film Volterra also provides the climatic backdrop to Stephanie Meyer's box-office hit, "New Moon", ...

An international team including University of Pennsylvania paleontologists is unearthing the appearance of ancient animals by using the world's most powerful X-rays. New research shows how trace metals in fossils can be used to determine the pigmentation patterns of creatures dead for more than a hundred million years. The research was conducted by an international team working with Phillip Manning, an adjunct professor in the School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Earth and Environmental Science, and Peter Dodson, a professor in both the Department of Earth and ...

LA JOLLA, CA— Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found clues to the functioning of an important damage response protein in cells. The protein, p53, can cause cells to stop dividing or even to commit suicide when they show signs of DNA damage, and it is responsible for much of the tissue destruction that follows exposure to ionizing radiation or DNA-damaging drugs such as the ones commonly used for cancer therapy. The new finding shows that a short segment on p53 is needed to fine-tune the protein's activity in blood-forming stem cells and their ...

When we travel around Italy - testing our routes, talking to hoteliers, etc - we often come across things we never previously knew about! So, we thought it only fair to share some of our favourite findings with you! Emilia Romagna: Festa di San Cassiano Plan your cycling holiday so that you'll be in Comacchio on 13th August 2011 and join the locals in celebrating the feast of their Patron Saint, San Cassiano. Known affectionately as "Little Venice", postcard-pretty Comacchio is a maze of canals and bridges rising out of 13 different islands and islets. ...

How easy is it to falsify memory? New research at the Weizmann Institute shows that a bit of social pressure may be all that is needed. The study, which appears Friday in Science, reveals a unique pattern of brain activity when false memories are formed – one that hints at a surprising connection between our social selves and memory. The experiment, conducted by Prof. Yadin Dudai and research student Micah Edelson of the Institute's Neurobiology Department with Prof. Raymond Dolan and Dr. Tali Sharot of University College London, took place in four stages. In the first, ...

The study involved 270 adult trauma patients with, or at risk of, significant extracranial bleeding within 8 hours of injury, who also had traumatic brain injury. It was a prospective randomised controlled trial carried out within the larger CRASH-2 trial to quantify the effect of an early short course of tranexamic acid on intracranial haemorrhage. In May 2011, the CRASH-2 trial collaborators' paper: Effects of tranexamic acid on death, vascular occlusive events, and blood transfusion in trauma patients with significant haemorrhage (CRASH-2): a randomised, placebo-controlled ...

Tel Aviv — Playing the stock market can be a risky game. And when the market behaves unpredictably, public fear can lead to erratic investment responses and market chaos. But there is a way to make this fear work in your favor, say Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob and Dr. Yoash Shapira of Tel Aviv University's Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy. The team's recent research demonstrates that a smart stock market portfolio should not only take into account negative correlations on returns among the stocks, but also the dynamics of volatility. "It's a way to ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Whenever it hears an unfamiliar song from a bird of the same species, a zebra finch stops chirping, hopping and grooming. It listens attentively for minutes at a time, occasionally cocking its head but otherwise immobile. Once it becomes familiar with the song, it goes back to its busy routine. (See video.) In a new study, researchers discovered that levels of microRNAs – short lengths of ribonucleic acid that appear to regulate protein production – go up or down in the songbird brain after it hears a new song. These microRNAs likely represent a new ...

Knowing how many of you are keen gardeners, and with the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show opening this week, we've decided to share our top 10 garden choices for summer 2011. 1. The beautiful park surrounding the Chateau de Chenonceau in France's Loire Valley hosts the International Garden Festival annually between May and October. It's a fabulous fusion of 'conceptual' gardens created by green-fingered artists and, bizarrely, philosophers! Visit on our Chateaux of the Loire Cycling holiday 2. Majorelle Gardens: designed in 1924 by French expatriate artist, Jacques ...

University of Alberta researchers have produced a map of Edmonton predicting the most likely locations where vehicles will collide with deer. These collisions can be fatal for drivers and their passengers. The hot spots for deer vs. vehicle collisions virtually encircle Edmonton along the city limit, border line. Mark Boyce is a U of A ecologist and co author of the paper. Boyce found that the most dangerous rural roadways share three features; Natural vegetation, bushes and trees, run right up to the roadside, the roads pass through a landscape of farm fields and forests ...

A Johns Hopkins team has discovered in young adult mice that a lone brain stem cell is capable not only of replacing itself and giving rise to specialized neurons and glia – important types of brain cells – but also of taking a wholly unexpected path: generating two new brain stem cells. A report on their study appears June 24 in Cell. Although it was known that the brain has the capacity to generate both neurons, which send and receive signals, and the glial cells that surround them, it was unclear whether these various cell types came from a single source. In addition ...

Generic anti-epilepsy drugs, pharmaceutical products similar to brand-name versions, save consumers billions of dollars each year, but some are different enough from branded formulations that they may not be effective, particularly if patients switch between two generic drugs, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. A report on the study, published online and in an upcoming issue of Annals of Neurology, raises questions about whether some generic products are safe and effective when a narrow dose range separates patients from help and harm. "In most areas ...

RakeTheRake.com continues its relaunch promotions with more bespoke poker room prizes on offer. Online poker players, even those not tracked to RakeTheRake, can enter Minted Poker's $2500 freeroll and have a chance to win one month's free poker training available for fifty players. There's also the chance to win one of six fabulous packages to the European Masters of Poker in Barcelona, offered by NoiQ! In addition to these amazing promotions running now, RakeTheRake players have a chance to win portable DVD players and RakeTheRake merchandise if they take a short survey ...

BOULDER--Researchers have found that areas near commercial airports sometimes experience a small but measurable increase in rain and snow when aircraft take off and land under certain atmospheric conditions. The new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), is part of ongoing research that focuses on so-called hole punch and canal clouds that form when planes fly through certain mid-level clouds, forcing nearby air to rapidly expand and cool. This causes water droplets to freeze to ice and then turn to snow as they fall toward the ground, leaving ...

The technology that allows scientists to profile the entire genome of individual tumors offers new hope for discovering ways to select the best treatment for each patient's particular type of cancer. However, these profiles produce huge amounts of data, and the volume alone creates unique analytical problems. In a study published on-line this week in the journal BMC Medical Genomics, researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah describe a new analytical approach based on a concept called multiplicity, that can organize large amounts of varied ...

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have provided more clues to one of the least understood phenomena in some cancers: why the "ends caps" of cellular DNA, called telomeres, lengthen instead of shorten. In a study published online June 30 in Science Express, the Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified two genes that, when defective, may cause these telomere elongations. Telomeres contain repeated sequences of DNA that, in normal cells, shorten each time a cell divides. Without telomeres, the cell division-related shortening could snip off a cell's genes and disrupt ...