Recognized by TIME Magazine and the White House initiative United We Serve, Summer Advantage USA, an award-winning summer enrichment program, will impact over 600 students (called "scholars") in Chicago schools this summer. Although the number of schools is growing, Holy Angels School, St. Elizabeth School and Von Humboldt Elementary School are sites confirmed for the program. Summer Advantage USA is one of the nation's few evidence-based summer learning programs. With hundreds of Chicago children at home alone watching TV during the summer months, the ...

http://www.jackpotcity.com/ca/ is celebrating all incredible fathers, grandfathers and father figures with great gadget giveaways over the weekend of the 17th - 19th of June 2011. The prizes include a number of devices and include the following: - Flat Screen TV - Smartphone - Tablet PC - E-book Reader To enter all a player needs to do is follow the three easy steps if they already have an account. 1. Simply log in to play from 17 - 19 June 2011 2. Vote for the ultimate guy's gadget 3. Plus wager 50 and enter to qualify Players who do not yet have an ...

With fathers all over the country looking forward to being spoiled for one day this year, leading online retail deals site DiscountVouchers.co.uk can help children to get more for their money this week. The website, which offers deals redeemable at more than 800 stores, has introduced new offers and exclusives this week. This week sees DiscountVouchers.co.uk offering deals for saving up to 50% on all manner of Father's Day gifts, including dining out at top restaurants, experience days and more besides. Visit www.discountvouchers.co.uk this week to enjoy new deals including ...

The majority of most gaming software nowadays have an African Safari themed Internet slots in their line up. Realtime Gaming (RTG) software never had an African themed slot game before hence the reason it decided to include one just to keep up with the Joneses. The name of RTG's newest slot game is called "White Rhino" in its trendy Real Series. The infamous African plains act as the background of this slot game on the reels. Showcased on the reels are some of Africa's well known wild animals such as the elephant, rhino, lion, springbok, and ostrich. These ...

In response to ASTM publishing two new methods for the evaluation of topical hand antiseptic products, BioScience Laboratories has designed a study to compare the three published ASTM methods and determine which method is most appropriate for each product type. ASTM E1174-06 Standard Test Method for Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Health Care Personnel Handwash Formulation ASTM E2755-10 Determining the Bacteria-Eliminating Effectiveness of Hand Sanitizer Formulations Using Hands of Adults ASTM E2784-10 Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Handwash Formulations ...

Juggling time between a successful career and raising children can be quite a challenge--but Lucimar Dixon manages her time well. In addition, she spends countless hours volunteering in her local community. She places high value on ensuring she gives generously to those less fortunate than herself. Lucimar is a member of the Princeton Alliance Church, a place Lucimar tends to feel welcomed and encouraged to give to others. She often joins other members of the church to volunteer and work within the Plainsboro, New Jersey community. Belonging to church provides Lucimar ...

Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) have uncovered structural clues about the protein linked to Parkinson's disease (PD), which ultimately could lead to finding a cure for the degenerative neurological disorder. The alpha-synuclein (α-synuclein) protein is commonly found in the healthy human brain even though its function is not clear. The protein has been the subject of substantial Parkinson's research, however, because it is a major component in the protein clumps found in PD cases. Unlike most proteins, ...

Tucson, Ariz. - Health insurance is not protecting Arizonans from having problems paying medical bills, and having bill problems is keeping families from getting needed medical care and prescription medicines, a new study has found. According to a study published online June 16, 2011, by the American Journal of Public Health, after taking age, income and health status into account, simply being insured does not lower the odds of accruing debt related to medical care or medications. In addition, says University of Arizona College of Pharmacy research scientist Patricia ...

Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has the potential to make consumer electronic devices faster and smaller. But its unique properties, and the shrinking scale of electronics, also make graphene difficult to fabricate and to produce on a large scale. In September 2010, a UCLA research team reported that they had overcome some of these difficulties and were able to fabricate graphene transistors with unparalleled speed. These transistors used a nanowire as the self-aligned gate — the element that switches the transistor between various states. But ...

Fluctuations in climate can drastically affect the habitability of marine ecosystems, according to a new study by UCLA scientists that examined the expansion and contraction of low-oxygen zones in the ocean. The UCLA research team, led by assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences Curtis Deutsch, used a specialized computer simulation to demonstrate for the first time that the size of low-oxygen zones created by respiring bacteria is extremely sensitive to changes in depth caused by oscillations in climate. These oxygen-depleted regions, which expand or ...

College Park, MD (June 17, 2011)--A team of researchers has proposed a way to turn the material graphene into a semiconductor, enabling it to control the flow of electrons with a laser "on-off switch". Graphene is thinnest and strongest material ever discovered. It's a layer of carbon atoms only one-atom thick, but 200 times stronger than steel. It also conducts electricity extremely well and heat better than any other known material. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even atoms of helium can penetrate it. In spite of the impressive list of promising ...

Fish catches in Madagascar over the last half-century are double the official reports, and much of that fish is being caught by unregulated traditional fishers or accessed cheaply by foreign fishing vessels. Seafood exports from Madagascar often end up in a European recipe, but are a recipe for political unrest at home, where two-thirds of the population face hunger. These are the findings of a recent study led by researchers from the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us Project in collaboration with the Madagascar-based conservation organisation Blue Ventures. ...

Co-author Professor Tony Bacic from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls, School of Botany and the Bio21 Institute, at the University of Melbourne, said plant cell walls (plant biomass) represent the world's largest renewable resource. "Plant sciences have become a major new driver of international research due to their central role as renewable sources of transport fuels, as functional foods to improve human health, and as a source of raw materials for industrial processes," he said. The study has been published in the current issue of the international ...

RIKEN and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) have successfully produced a first beam of X-ray laser light with a wavelength of 1.2 Angstroms. This light was created using SACLA, a cutting-edge X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility unveiled by RIKEN in February 2011 in Harima, Japan. SACLA (SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser) opens a window into the structure of atoms and molecules at a level of detail never seen before. The use of ultra high-intensity X-ray free electron laser light to explore the miniature structure of matter, until ...

The potentially lasting implications of day-to-day couple conflict on physical and mental well-being are revealed in a study published today in the journal Personal Relationships. Until now research has concentrated on the immediate effects of romantic conflict, typically in controlled laboratory settings. In one of the first studies to look at the longer term, Professor Angela Hicks investigated the physiological and emotional changes taking place in couples the day after conflict occurred, specifically taking into account the differing styles of emotional attachment ...

Luiz Tadeu Moraes Figuedo's paper on dengue in Brazil confirms the country's worsening trend; from 1999-2009, where cases rose at 6.2% per year and dengue deaths at 12.0% per year. Carmen Perez and co-workers, reporting on dengue vector control in Puerto Rico, found that 83% of the costs ($1.97 per person per year) were funded by the lowest and often the least financed level of government: municipalities. Examining dengue cases imported into France, Guy LaRuche documented the alarming increase in cases originating from Cote d'Ivoire from only one case in 2006-07 to ...

Negative-pressure wound therapy probably does not promote healing. This is the conclusion of Frank Peinemann and Stefan Sauerland's meta-analysis in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[22]: 381-9). In negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT), wounds are covered with an airtight film and an adjustable negative pressure is applied using an electronically controlled pump. The negative pressure drains wound exudate and is thought to promote healing. This procedure is used in particular for chronic persistent wounds and complicated ...

A University of Exeter biologist has discovered a 'lost' species of bat breeding on the Isles of Scilly (UK). A pregnant female brown long-eared bat is the first of its species to be found on the islands for at least 40 years. It was discovered by Dr Fiona Mathews, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, a postgraduate student and a team from the Wiltshire Bat Group. The Scilly Isles Bat Group called in Dr Mathews and her team to help them find out more about bats on the islands. The researchers set up a radiotracking study, with funding from the Isles of Scilly ...

Researchers headed by Joan Massagué at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York and by María Macías at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) have identified a complex mechanism by which some proteins that are essential for life, called Smads, regulate the activity of genes associated with cancer. The fruit of three years of intense work, the study reports on the life cycle of this protein, a process that ensures that the protein is destroyed when it has completed its function. These results have been published today in the top journal ...

Scientists and educators alike have long known that cramming is not an effective way to remember things. With their latest findings, researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, studying eye movement response in trained mice, have elucidated the neurological mechanism explaining why this is so. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, their results suggest that protein synthesis in the cerebellum plays a key role in memory consolidation, shedding light on the fundamental neurological processes governing how we remember. The "spacing effect", first discovered ...

A compound that for about 60 years has been used as a drug against tapeworm infection is also apparently effective against colon cancer metastasis, as studies using mice have now shown. The compound silences a gene that triggers the formation of metastases in colon cancer. Professor Ulrike Stein (Experimental and Clinical Research Center, a joint cooperation between the Charité Medical Faculty and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, (MDC)) and her research group made this discovery in collaboration with Professor Robert H. Shoemaker of the National Cancer Institute ...

VIDEO: A movie of the encounter made by combining 100 images of the June 1, 2011 Phobos–Jupiter conjunction. The High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express took this sequence. Click here for more information. Earlier this month, ESA's Mars Express performed a special manoeuvre to observe an unusual alignment of Jupiter and the martian moon Phobos. The impressive images have now been processed into a movie of this rare event. At the moment when Mars Express, Phobos, and ...

The post-war trend of falling birth rates has been reversed across Europe, according to a new study. However, despite an increasing emphasis on family and fertility policies in Europe, this recent development involves social, cultural and economic factors more than individual policy interventions. For some decades, couples have been having children later in life. But birth-rates among younger women have stabilised and the long-term trend towards lower fertility rates has been reversed. Politicians are still left to grapple with problems associated with an ageing population ...

It pays to prevent fractures. That's one of the main findings of a landmark report 'Osteoporosis – Burden, Healthcare provision and Opportunities in the European Union' newly published in the journal Archives of Osteoporosis. The study, compiled by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) in collaboration with the European Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), calculates the future burden of fractures as a consequence of increasing treatment uptake in the five largest European countries as well as Sweden. Fragility fractures, which ...

The U.S. Medicaid program is likely paying far more than necessary for medications and not offering patients the most effective ones available, by ignoring international evidence-based lists of safe and effective medications, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco. The study, which compared the Medicaid program's Preferred Drug Lists in 40 states nationwide against the World Health Organization's 2009 Essential Medicines List, found that the medications that are automatically paid for by the state-run Medicaid programs vary ...