The blanket of sea ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean appears to have reached its lowest extent for 2011, the second lowest recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center. The Arctic sea ice extent fell to 1.67 million square miles, or 4.33 million square kilometers on Sept. 9, 2011. This year's minimum of 1.67 million square miles is more than 1 million square miles below the 1979-2000 monthly average extent for September -- an area larger than Texas and California combined. While ...

Eurostar, the high-speed passenger service linking London and mainland Europe, has announced that it has begun the search for a roster of agencies to provide creative and advertising services across its core markets of the UK, France and Belgium. The ultimately successful agency or group of agencies may also assume responsibility for Eurostar's international and emerging markets. The pitch process is a consequence of Eurostar's strategic decision to introduce a more consistent brand personality across all of its different markets as the business prepares for the advent ...

Park Inn by Radisson Al Khobar was recently awarded the 'Best Mid-market Hotel in Saudi Arabia' at the first ever Saudi Excellence in Tourism Awards. The awards are held under the patronage of HRH Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz, the president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. The Park Inn hotel in Al Khobar fought off tough competition from 16 other nominees in its category to receive the top honour. The nominees for each category were decided by the public through an online vote before a panel of eight leading national and international experts ...

When lung cancer strikes, it often spreads silently into more advanced stages before being detected. In a new article published in Nature Nanotechnology, biological engineers and medical scientists at the University of Missouri reveal how their discovery could provide a much earlier warning signal. "Early detection can save lives, but there is currently no proven screening test available for lung cancer," said Michael Wang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences at MU and a corresponding author for the article. "We've developed highly sensitive ...

To help retailers effectively plan for the Christmas spike in trade, which typically accounts for around 20-30% of the industry's annual sales, global digital marketing and technology agency LBi and its media arm bigmouthmedia have published 'A Christmas Countdown: Getting your online business ready for the holiday season', a joint insight document which provides best practice advice and recommendations on how to plan and execute an effective Christmas ecommerce strategy. The agency, which works with clients including Boots, Cath Kidston and Play.com, has developed ...

A group led by a University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health scientist has discovered a type of spinal cord cell that could function as a stem cell, with the ability to regenerate portions of the central nervous system in people with spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). The radial glial cells, which are marked by long projections that can forge through brain tissue, had never previously been found in an adult spinal cord. Radial glia, which are instrumental in building the brain and spinal cord ...

The Radisson Blu Hotel at Disneyland Paris acts for the environment protection and supports Planete Urgence organization Since 2006, the year of the opening of the Disneyland Paris hotel, Radisson Blu Hotel is engaged daily in sustainable development actions. Since 2010, with Planete Urgence, the hotel has concentrated its efforts towards carbon compensation by planting trees through the Climate Emergency operation. Radisson Blu Hotel is committed to plant a minimum of 2,500 trees in the upcoming year, in Mali, Madagascar and Indonesia by offering business clients ...

Just as cell phones and computers transmit data through electronic networks, the cells of your body send and receive chemical messages through molecular pathways. The term "cell signaling" was coined more than 30 years ago to describe this process. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the data capacity of a biochemical signaling pathway and found a surprise – it's way lower than even an old-fashioned, dial-up modem. "This key biochemical pathway is involved in complex functions but can transmit less than one bit – the smallest unit of information in ...

GALVESTON — Researchers have found that a protein linked to cell division and migration and tied to increased cell proliferation in ovarian tumors is also present at high levels in breast cancer specimens and cell lines. The protein, dubbed "UNC-45A," was also determined to be more active in breast cancer cells than in normal breast cells. University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston scientists describe these findings and others in a paper now online in the Journal of Molecular Biology. "As a result of earlier work, we hypothesized that UNC-45A should be critical ...

This press release is available in French.Bamako, Mali (15 September 2011) – The Geneva-based not-for-profit foundation FIND and Japanese diagnostics company Eiken announced today that a next-generation molecular test designed specifically for sleeping sickness – a deadly parasitic disease also known as human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) - is ready to enter accelerated field trials in sites across the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. If all goes well, the LAMP (Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification) test - which has completed design and development phases - will ...

Part 1: Twitter If you think Twitter is just for teenagers and celebrities, think again. Sometimes we are asked to help people with their social media; many think that, for business, LinkedIn may be relevant but Twitter and Facebook are not going to attract clients and therefore not worthy of their attention. They couldn't be more wrong. Before going any further, I would like to share a couple of experiences that I recently had connecting with businesses on Twitter. Having endured hours of frustration being kept on hold on their help line, all to no avail, I tweeted ...

COLLEGE STATION, Sept. 15, 2011 – In the next 20 years, more than 590,000 square miles of land globally — more than twice the size of Texas — will be gobbled up by cities, a trend that shows no signs of stopping and one that could pose threats on several levels, says a Texas A&M University geographer who is part of a national team studying the problem. Burak Güneralp, a research assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Texas A&M, says urban areas are growing faster than urban populations and by 2030, urbanized land worldwide will grow by 590,000 square miles ...

SPL has long been a leader in offering technical services to the oil and gas industry, focusing primarily on hydrocarbon laboratory analytical and field services. "Steve has done an outstanding job for us over the past 31 years in managing our laboratory in Traverse City, Michigan," said Herb Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer. "He serves the company with distinction and has been an exemplary laboratory manager." Since 1980, Mr. Grenda has served as Operations Manager of the Traverse City, Michigan facility. Prior to joining SPL, Mr. ...

The Jersey Outlaw-Jimmie Lee, explodes into the poker world armed with his latest single, "Hit the River Running" that perfectly captures the emotions poker players feel as they sweat out that crucial card that can seal their fate!! The new single has been co written by HotAussieChick and Poker Guru, Danielle Adams Benham, and promises to take the poker world by storm! The songs driving rock beat with Jimmie's killer vocals, is sure to make this a top single for the poker world! Jimmie Lee has already received critical acclaim for his first poker song, I'm ...

CHICAGO – Ovarian cancer is a rare but often deadly disease that can strike at any time in a woman's life. It affects one in 70 women and in the past was referred to as a silent killer, but researchers have found there are symptoms associated with ovarian cancer that can assist in early detection. Experts at Northwestern Memorial say the best defense is to make use of preventive methods, understand the risks and recognize potential warning signs of ovarian cancer. "Currently, there is no reliable screening test to identify early ovarian cancer. Women need to focus on ...

Berkeley, CA — The installed cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2010 and into the first half of 2011, according to the latest edition of an annual PV cost tracking report released by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The average installed cost of residential and commercial PV systems completed in 2010 fell by roughly 17 percent from the year before, and by an additional 11 percent within the first six months of 2011. These recent installed cost reductions are attributable, ...

Watching children on the playground, we see them run, climb, slide, get up, and do it all again. While their movements are continuous, we language-users can easily divide them up and name each one. But what about people—babies—who don't yet have words? How do they make sense of a world in motion? An upcoming study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, finds that infants at seven to nine months are able to slice up the flow of events, even before they start to speak. And the researchers believe they've identified the ...

Researchers have identified promising new therapies for ependymoma, a rare tumor with few treatment options. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators led the effort, which used a new, faster drug development system that combines the latest drug screening technology with the first accurate animal model of the tumor. Investigators identified several dozen new and existing drugs as possible ependymoma treatment candidates. The drugs were found by screening 5,303 existing medicines, natural products and other compounds for activity against the tumor, which develops ...

To highlight Pain Awareness Month in September, The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — is announcing two forthcoming publications focused on pain relief and medication for seniors. Paired with its other recent research findings, GSA aims to provide readers with information on how new advances in pain prevention, treatment, and management may improve care and quality of life for older adults. Both new publications are part of GSA's From Publication to Practice series, which aims ...

PHILADELPHIA - The changing tide of Alzheimer's diagnosis presents new challenges to the public, physicians and lawmakers: if you could find out your Alzheimer's risk, would you want to know? How should doctors tell you your risk? And what does it mean for the many newly diagnosed Americans still in the workplace? Despite the emergence of new tools that can diagnose Alzheimer's earlier, no effective interventions have been identified to stop the progression of the disease. A new report from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania tackles the ...

NASA's TRMM satellite peers through clouds and can decipher the rate rain is falling within a tropical cyclone, and data from the satellite shows that the heaviest rainfall is occurring in the northwestern quadrant of the storm, away from Bermuda. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite traveled above tropical storm Maria on Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 1001 UTC ( 6:01 a.m. EDT). TRMM has the ability to measure rainfall rates and cloud heights, two factors that are important and helpful to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) meteorologists who are ...

A new model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that mirrors both symptoms of the disease and the timing of its treatment in humans has been created by University of Chicago researchers, according to a new study. Using the model, researchers isolated a single neurotransmitter receptor in a specific brain region responsible for their model's OCD-like symptoms, offering new insight into the cause of the disorder. Further research with the model may point the way to new treatments for both OCD and autism, said Nancy Shanahan, PhD, lead author of the paper in Biological ...

Tropical Storm Roke is showing some signs of intensification on NASA infrared satellite imagery, as areas of strong convection and very cold cloud tops were spotted. Kadena Air Base in Okinawa is now in Roke's sights and should be making preparations. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Roke yesterday and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument showed powerful convection building around the storm's center and over the northern edge. Meanwhile, dry air is wrapping into the low-level center from the southwest, and limiting cloud development. Infrared imagery provides ...

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite yesterday showed powerful convection building in the low pressure area known as System 94W and provided forecasters with an inside look that the low was strengthening. System 94W did intensify and became Tropical Storm Sonca today. Infrared imagery is gathered by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies on NASA's Aqua satellite. It provides valuable information to forecast organizations such as the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and National Hurricane Center about cloud temperatures and heights and ...

Cake Decorating Teacher's blog is dedicated to serving online viewers with a listing of easy to make recipes. Weekly blog posts include delicious dessert recipes at www.cakedecoratingteacher.com along with how to instructions for their readers convenience. Life has never been this easy when it comes to finding free access to great baking recipes since the Internet and its listing of blog sites such as Cake Decorating Teacher. Posts can easily be viewed under the posts section of their website. To stay updated on the latest posts readers can subscribe to the blog's RSS ...