An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths. Researchers used Chandra to discover a new ultraluminous X-ray source, or ULX. These objects give off more X-rays than most binary systems, in which a companion star orbits the remains ...

Monday, April 30, 2012, Cleveland: In a landmark drug-comparison study, Cleveland Clinic researchers found that bevacizumab (Avastin) is equivalent to ranibizumab (Lucentis) in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) through two years. The study — Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (CATT) — also showed that monthly dosing produced slightly more vision gain than as-needed dosing. But the final visual results were similar in all treatment groups, regardless of dosing frequency, with 60-percent or more of the patients achieving driving vision (20/40 ...

A team of Rice University students accepted a challenge to turn shale gas produced in China into a range of useful, profitable and environmentally friendly products and did so in a cost-effective manner. The CHBE Pandas (CHBE stands for chemical and biomolecular engineering) designed a process by which shale gas extracted in the rich Sichuan Basin could be turned into methanol, hydrogen and carbon disulfide, all valuable products in the booming Chinese economy. The Rice team was one of seven groups of students presented similar challenges for locations outside of the ...

Some tourists vanish without a trace. Over 170 people have disappeared from cruise ships around the world since 1995, several under very suspicious circumstances. Others have their lives senselessly stolen, like the 8-year old boy sucked into an unprotected pool drain at a major resort, leaving his mother crying out his name as security staff held her at gunpoint. Or 22-year old Nolan Webster, denied proper medical care after being pulled unconscious from a Cancun resort pool, only to have his dead body left in plain view for hours and his parents billed for his room. Vacations ...

VIDEO: These images were captured by Christofer Clemente and his team using high speed cameras and markers at key points in the bodies of monitor lizards. The research found that middle-sized... Click here for more information. New research in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology shows why bigger isn't always better when it comes to sprinting speed. "Typically, bigger animals tend to run faster than smaller animals, because they have longer legs," said Christofer ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida lepidopterist Andrei Sourakov has spent his life's work studying moths and butterflies. But it was his teenage daughter, Alexandra, who led research on how color impacts butterflies' feeding patterns. The research shows different species exhibit unique foraging behaviors, and the study may be used to build more effective, species-specific synthetic lures for understanding pollinators, insects on which humans depend for sustaining many crops. In a study appearing online in April in the journal Psyche, researchers used multi-colored ...

Former Reed Brothers Dodge, in Rockville, Maryland (MD) is delighted to announce the launch of their new Wordpress blog at http://reedbrothersdodgehistory.wordpress.com/. Business longevity is something to celebrate and share. The Reed Brothers Dodge History blog will act as a platform for readers to gain insight into the history and success their business has achieved. On this blog, readers will find an historic timeline that showcases their company's history, how Reed Brothers Dodge came into being, and how the company overcame the inevitable changes and challenges ...

WASHINGTON, District of Columbia (April 30, 2012) – In a surveillance study of over 12 million bacteria, investigators at The George Washington University and Providence Hospital found E. coli antimicrobial resistance to ciprofloxacin, the most commonly prescribed antimicrobial for urinary tract infections in the U.S., increased over five-fold from 2000 to 2010. In addition, nearly one in four isolates in 2010 were resistant to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim®), the second most commonly prescribed drug for this infection. This research was published in the April ...

A synthetic mixture of intestinal bacteria could one day replace stool transplants as a treatment for Clostridium difficile (C. difficile). C. difficile is a toxin-producing bacteria that can overpopulate the colon when antibiotics eradicate other, naturally protective bacteria living there. "A synthetic stool transplant has a lot of potential because we can control what goes in and we can alter, change, or modify it as necessary," says Elaine Petrof, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Queen's University and in the Gastrointestinal Disease Research ...

The Tour de Road America Foundation today announced that Subaru will return as a sponsor for the 2012 event and will expand its partnership with the annual cancer survivorship fundraising event, to be known as the SUBARU tour de Road America - BIKE RIDE TO FIGHT CANCER. Between 400 and 500 participants are expected to the challenge of the hills and fourteen turns of the four-mile Road America race track on the evening of Friday, August 17, 2012 as part of the 9th annual SUBARU tour de Road America. Participants will include race fans, families, cancer survivors, and ...

Climate researchers are producing some of the fastest growing datasets in science. Five years ago, the amount of information generated for the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report was 35 terabytes—equivalent to the amount of text in 35 million books, occupying a bookshelf 248 miles (399 km) long. By 2014, when the next IPCC report is published, experts predict that 2 petabytes of data will have been generated for it—that's a 580 percent increase in data production. Because thousands of researchers around ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Historically, fly and human Polycomb proteins were considered textbook exemplars of transcriptional repressors, or proteins that silence the process by which DNA gives rise to new proteins. Now, work by a team of researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research challenges that dogma. In a cover story in the May 2012 issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology, Stowers Investigator Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., and his team report that in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster a component of the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), which is called ...

Startupr has good news for companies looking to enter the Hong Kong market - The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department has just announced that they are decreasing the business registration fee from 2000 HKD to 0 HKD. The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department has just announced that they are decreasing the business registration fee from 2000 HKD to 0 HKD. When you take into account the Hong Kong Levy fee of 450 HKD and the total incorporation fees of 1720 HKD (or 300 USD), the total fees for incorporation have gone down from 4170 HKD to only 2170 HKD. Now that business registration ...

AspireGlobal, the largest provider of online instant win games, announced today the launch of an exclusive instant win game based on the popular multiple Emmy winning soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. The game, featuring characters from the show, is available on AspireGlobal's instant win gaming site Karamba.com. As part of launch of the game, one lucky player will be flown to Los Angeles to visit the set and attend a live taping of the show and meet some of the B&B cast. According to AspireGlobal's managing director Adrian Bailey, "Fans will not only ...

Ottawa, Ontario (April 30, 2012)–Lactoferrin is an important iron-binding protein with many health benefits. The major form of this powerful protein, is secreted into human biofluids (e.g. milk, blood, tears, saliva), and is responsible for most of the host-defense properties. Because of the many beneficial activities associated with it, researchers are starting to use lactoferrin as a potential therapeutic protein. And, in contrast to many other therapeutic proteins, which need to be injected into patients, lactoferrin can be orally active. Lactoferrin is the subject ...

A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis. Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient, renewable ...

New research shows that fluoride chemicals added to U.S. public water supplies are not reducing tooth decay as promoted and promised by government agencies, reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF). Using federal statistics, the West Virginia University Rural Health Research Center reports that urban U.S. children, with more exposure to fluoridated water and dental care, have just as many cavities as less fluoridation-exposed rural children. The researchers write: "For children's dental health measures, it was found that fluoridation ...

Ottawa, Ontario (April 30, 2012) – In a rapid communication just published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, biologist Douglas Swain of the Gulf Fisheries Centre and Robert Mohn, emeritus scientist, at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography present findings that suggest the delay in recovery of Atlantic cod on the eastern Scotian Shelf could be attributed to increased predation by grey seals or other governing factors and not the effect of forage fish as previously thought. "Swain and Mohn provide provocative scientific evidence challenging the ...

A new analysis from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital adds to evidence that equal access to comprehensive treatment and supportive care typically translates into equally good outcomes for most young African-American and white cancer patients. Researchers found no significant difference in survival rates between African-American and white children treated at St. Jude for virtually all cancers during a 15-year period ending in 2007. Racial disparities in cancer survival are widely recognized among African-American patients of any age. These patients are less likely ...

HR software developer Halfpricesoft.com recently updated ezTimeSheet time tracking software with new vacation and leave plan options to give small businesses more versatility when tracking vacation time, sick time and paid time off for employees. They hope this new edition of time sheet software can save user¡¯s more time and money on employee management. ¡°Employee attendance tracking is important for any business and organization; however employee attendance and vacation time tracking can be very time-consuming. We believe small business should focus their time and ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Contemplating death doesn't necessarily lead to morose despondency, fear, aggression or other negative behaviors, as previous research has suggested. Following a review of dozens of studies, University of Missouri researchers found that thoughts of mortality can lead to decreased militaristic attitudes, better health decisions, increased altruism and helpfulness, and reduced divorce rates. "According to terror management theory, people deal with their awareness of mortality by upholding cultural beliefs and seeking to become part of something larger and ...

Perched atop the sheer coastal cliffs of Ireland's Aran Islands, ridges of giant boulders have puzzled geologists for years. What forces could have torn these rocks from the cliff edges high above sea level and deposited them far inland? While some researchers contend that only a tsunami could push these stones, new research in The Journal of Geology finds that plain old ocean waves, with the help of some strong storms, did the job. And they're still doing it. The three tiny Aran Islands are just off the western coast of Ireland. The elongated rock ridges form a ...

Systech Illinois offer a leading range of oxygen and water vapor permeation analysers for testing of all packaging film, finished package and PET bottles. They are an invaluable R&D resource for testing and validating new packaging. Systech also provide fast, accurate oxygen and carbon dioxide analyzers for testing headspace and gas flushed food packages. These can be used effectively with packages of all sizes and portable and waterproof versions are available. Ultratec plan to exhibit Systech IllinoisâEUR extensive range of permeation analysers, headspace gas analysers ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Management have proposed a better way of measuring the capabilities of IT service providers in a study recently published in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. The study was conducted by Rajiv Kishore, associate professor, and H. Raghav Rao, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, in the school's Management Science and Systems Department, and Matthew E. Swinarski, associate professor, and Eric Jackson, assistant professor, in the Sam and Irene Black School of Business at Penn State Erie, The Behrend ...

American Dentist Says US Dentists Overcharge! So he sends patients to Cabo dental clincs and Puerto Vallarta dentists. And he even pays the airfare for dental makeover patients. American dentist Dr. Nelson Henry DDS has worked both in the USA and onboard cruise ships traveling the world as the ship's dentist for passengers and crew. He operates two clinics in rural Maine but for years has been enjoying vacationing in Mexico's prime resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta. Seeing that high-quality low-cost dental care is available in Mexico dental clinics ...