Former Teacher of Riverside, California, USA, Danae Samson makes her publishing debut with the release of her novel - LAMENT HILL, published by UK based Publishing House, MediaAria CDM Ltd. Inspired by the haunting beauty of Portland, Oregon, and her literary hero, Stephen King, the debut novel by Danae Samson, Lament Hill, at turns dark and uncompromising, yet filled with cleverly written moments of black humour, tells the story of a music journalist, David Masterson, who is given the assignment of a lifetime - to interview the world famous, yet reclusive rock star, ...

Illinois drivers with personal auto coverage may have seen higher rates recently or will see them soon as regulators in the state released documents from March showing 23 companies with recent or upcoming premium changes, reports Online Auto Insurance News. The impact shoppers will see when they compare auto insurance quotes will differ from customer to customer depending on factors like the time policyholders have been with an insurer, their driving records, applicable discounts and whether they hold both home and vehicle coverage with the same carrier. The companies' ...

Just in time for spring, Solartex Sun Gear, Inc. is pleased to announce its new line of all-natural, chemical-free sunscreens. Co-founded by Lisa Dewey and Laurie Whitman, the Virginia-based Solartex has long set the industry standard for state-of-the-art protection from the sun. Today, Solartex is the premier source for SPF Clothing, providing rash guards and plus size swim shirts for men and women, along with kid's swim shirts and toddler rash guards. The clothing's 50+SPF sun protection is great for both children and adults, with sizes ranging from baby / infant to ...

Electronic patient record (EPR) buying and selling energy outside of Northern America is still developing for most countries, with a majority of activity in Asia, the Middle East, and the UK, according to KLAS report "International EPR Market 2012: Multinational Vendor Footprints." The research firm spoke to hundreds of international providers in their new report mapping EPR market share for multinational vendors. The study looked for vendors with an EPR solution live in more than two countries. Vendors included Agfa, Alert, Allscripts, Cambio, Cerner, CSC/iSOFT, ...

In a new KLAS study, "Women's Imaging 2012: Tomosynthesis Makes a Splash," Hologic leads as the number one vendor in digital mammography. Combined with a strong digital mammography product and excellent service, tomosynthesis helps Hologic solidify their leadership position in the space. Tomosynthesis lives up to the hype, but KLAS found that there are still some issues to be ironed out with the newly approved technology. For those upgrading to tomosynthesis, the high cost is something to consider, especially because reimbursements continue to be cut for screening. ...

For those who love to travel, the Internet is an increasingly prominent tool. Travelers use the Web, including social networks, to book their hotels and even to buy plane tickets. What is more, many travelers also use the Web to share their thoughts on different travel accommodations, whether they are offering an airline recommendation or a full review of a particular hotel. But as travelers have increasingly embraced the Web, the travel industry has found itself facing an urgent need for online reputation services. In fact, more and more hotels are seeking protection against ...

One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime. The earlier cancer is detected, the better the chance of successful treatment and long-term survival. However, early cancer diagnosis is still challenging as testing by mammography remains cumbersome, costly, and in many cases, cancer can only be detected at an advanced stage. A team based in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine has developed a new microfluidics-based microarray that could one day radically change how and when cancer is diagnosed. Their ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have found a way to measure the likelihood of global stock market losses by identifying periods in which shocks may be more likely to spread across many national markets. This "fragility index" identifies periods in which international equity markets are more susceptible to widespread pull-backs by identifying common risk exposures. The index identifies when systemic risk exposure is high in markets across multiple countries, and shows an increasing probability of a global stock market draw-down. For example, the likelihood of a global ...

The blogging community is more racially diverse than one might think. Internet-connected African Americans are more likely to blog than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. While African Americans as a whole are less likely to afford laptops and personal computers, Internet-savvy blacks, on average, blog one and a half times to nearly twice as much as whites, while Hispanics blog at the same rate as whites, according to a study published in the March online issue of the journal, Information, Communication ...

Airport security screening has increased substantially during the past decade, while joint replacement procedures also continue to rise. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), in 2009, nearly 300,000 total hip replacements (THR) were performed in the United States. A new study, "Detection of Total Hip Prostheses at Airport Security Checkpoints: How Has Heightened Security Affected Patients," appearing in the April 4, 2012 issue of the JBJS, provides an analysis of current security measures on patients who have had a THR. A consecutive ...

The ability of the commonly used stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin) to speed recovery from general anesthesia appears to apply both to the inhaled gas isoflurane, as previously reported, and to the intravenous drug propofol. Members of the same Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team that reported the isoflurane study are publishing similar results for propofol in the May issue of Anesthesiology, and their paper has been issued online. "Propofol is the most widely used intravenous general anesthetic, and there is currently no way to reverse its effects," ...

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame's Eck Institute for Global Health developed a "gene chip" to contribute to the identification of malaria drug resistance, an effort that will allow for real-time response in modified treatment strategies for this devastating disease. The new discovery is described in a paper appearing in the latest early online edition of the journal Science. The team of researchers includes Notre Dame's Michael Ferdig, associate professor of biological sciences and doctoral student Becky Miller along with John Tan, managing director of the ...

April 5, 2012 - Old houses and vacant lots may not look like much to the naked eye, but to some, the site is better than gold. Excavations over the years can create a challenge to study what's left behind and often appears as if dirt and debris ended up mixed in a blender then pressed by a giant trash compactor. However, in Detroit, one scientist and geologist is finding some of the city's abandoned lots provide a surprising "natural laboratory" for studying certain processes involved in soil formation; particularly the weathering of rocky and mineral objects within ...

Rockville, Md., April 5, 2012 — In new research published in the April Journal of Food Science, analyses of the first known public database compiling reports on food fraud and economically motivated adulteration in food highlight the most fraud-prone ingredients in the food supply; analytical detection methods; and the type of fraud reported. Based on a review of records from scholarly journals, the top seven adulterated ingredients in the database are olive oil, milk, honey, saffron, orange juice, coffee, and apple juice. The database was created by the U.S. Pharmacopeial ...

Earth is clingy when it comes to copper. A new Rice University study this week in the journal Science finds that nature conspires at scales both large and small -- from the realms of tectonic plates down to molecular bonds -- to keep most of Earth's copper buried dozens of miles below ground. "Everything throughout history shows us that Earth does not want to give up its copper to the continental crust," said Rice geochemist Cin-Ty Lee, the lead author of the study. "Both the building blocks for continents and the continental crust itself, dating back as much as 3 billion ...

Harvard stem cell researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have taken a critical step in making possible the discovery in the relatively near future of a drug to control cystic fibrosis (CF), a fatal lung disease that claims about 500 lives each year, with 1,000 new cases diagnosed annually. Beginning with the skin cells of patients with CF, Jayaraj Rajagopal, MD, and colleagues first created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and then used those cells to create human disease-specific functioning lung epithelium, the tissue that lines the airways and is ...

Smithsonian scientists and their colleagues have uncovered a new threat posed by invasive Burmese pythons in Florida and the Everglades: The snakes are not only eating the area's birds, but also the birds' eggs straight from the nest. The results of this research add a new challenge to the area's already heavily taxed native wildlife. The team's findings are published in the online journal Reptiles & Amphibians: Conservation and Natural History. Burmese pythons, native to southern Asia, have taken up a comfortable residence in the state of Florida, especially in the Everglades. ...

Differences in factors such as income, education and marital status could contribute overwhelmingly to the gap in life expectancy between blacks and whites in the United States, according to one of the first studies to put a number on how much of the divide can be attributed to disparities in socioeconomic characteristics. A Princeton University study recently published in the journal Demography reveals that socioeconomic differences can account for 80 percent of the life-expectancy divide between black and white men, and for 70 percent of the imbalance between black ...

Post-doctoral researcher David Fluri and Professor Peter Zandstra at the University of Toronto's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) have developed a unique new technique for growing stem cells that may make possible cost-effective, large-scale stem cell manufacturing and research. Although stem cells are widely used for the testing of new drugs, researchers have always faced difficulties manufacturing enough viable cells from a culture. Typically, stem cells are grown on surfaces that must be scraped, and which must then be differentiated from ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite provides a look at thunderstorms in three dimensions and shows scientists the heights of the thunderclouds and the rainfall rates coming from them, both of which indicate severity. Powerful thunderstorms that created severe weather were more than 8 miles high. NOAA's National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center received 18 reports of tornadoes occurring on April 3 over northeastern Texas. Some of these very destructive storms dropped softball sized hail as they passed to the south of the Dallas/Fort ...

Many women do not fully appreciate the consequences of delaying motherhood, and expect that assisted reproductive technologies can reverse their aged ovarian function, Yale researchers reported in a study published in a recent issue of Fertility and Sterility. "There is an alarming misconception about fertility among women," said Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Fertility Center. "We also found a lack of knowledge about steps women can take early in their reproductive ...

La Jolla, CA----The discovery of a major gear in the biological clock that tells the body when to sleep and metabolize food may lead to new drugs to treat sleep problems and metabolic disorders, including diabetes. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, led by Ronald M. Evans, a professor in Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory, showed that two cellular switches found on the nucleus of mouse cells, known as REV-ERBα and REV-ERBβ, are essential for maintaining normal sleeping and eating cycles and for metabolism of nutrients from food. The findings, ...

New research by UCLA life scientists could lead to predictions of which plant species will escape extinction from climate change. Droughts are worsening around the world, posing a great challenge to plants in all ecosystems, said Lawren Sack, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the research. Scientists have debated for more than a century how to predict which species are most vulnerable. Sack and two members of his laboratory have made a fundamental discovery that resolves this debate and allows for the prediction of how diverse ...

Ecosystems are changing worldwide as a result of shrinking sea ice, snow, and glaciers, especially in high-latitude regions where water is frozen for at least a month each year—the cryosphere. Scientists have already recorded how some larger animals, such as penguins and polar bears, are responding to loss of their habitat, but research is only now starting to uncover less-obvious effects of the shrinking cryosphere on organisms. An article in the April issue of BioScience describes some impacts that are being identified through studies that track the ecology of affected ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 6, 2012—As global temperatures rise, the most threatened ecosystems are those that depend on a season of snow and ice, scientists from the nation's Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network say."The vulnerability of cool, wet areas to climate change is striking," says Julia Jones, a lead author in a special issue of the journal BioScience released today featuring results from more than 30 years of LTER, a program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). In semi-arid regions like the southwestern United States, mountain snowpacks are the dominant ...