Without fungi and microbes to break down dead trees and leaf litter in nature, the forest floor might look like a scene from TV's "Hoarders." Massive-scale genome sequencing projects supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and being carried out at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) highlight the importance of learning how the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin that serve as a plant's infrastructure can be broken down by these forest organisms to extract needed nutrients. Among the fungi being studied are species that can selectively break down the cell wall ...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Could blocking a testosterone receptor lead to a new way to treat an aggressive form of breast cancer? That's a question researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) are exploring. Preliminary results of a Mayo Clinic - TGen collaborative study shows the testosterone receptor may be a potential target to attack in treating triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Lead researcher Barbara Pockaj, M.D., a surgical oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Arizona will present the results of the study at the 65th annual ...

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 22, 2012 -- Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory's biggest magnet facility today met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to 2 million times Earth's magnetic field. "This is our moon shot, we've worked toward this for a decade and a half," said Chuck Mielke, director of the Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos. The team used the 100-tesla pulsed, multi-shot magnet, a combination of seven coils sets weighing ...

SEQUIM, Wash. – A glow coming from the glassy shell of microscopic marine algae called diatoms could someday help us detect chemicals and other substances in water samples. And the fact that this diatom can glow in response to an external substance could also help researchers develop a variety of new, diatom-inspired nanomaterials that could solve problems in sensing, catalysis and environmental remediation. Fluorescence is the key characteristic of a new biosensor developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The biosensor, ...

In the search for sustainability of the ocean's fisheries, solutions can be found in a surprising place: the ancient past. In a study published on March 23 in the journal Fish and Fisheries, a team of marine scientists reconstructed fisheries yields over seven centuries of human habitation in Hawaii and the Florida Keys, the largest coral reef ecosystems in the United States, and evaluated the management strategies associated with periods of sustainability. The results surprised them. "Before European contact, Native Hawaiians were catching fish at rates that far ...

Online Marketing Entrepreneur Adner Colon knew his life would change when he joined Carbon Copy Pro in February 2012 but not in the way he expected. Online Marketing Entrepreneur Adner Colon knew his life would change when he joined Carbon Copy Pro in February 2012 but not in the way he expected. On March 24th and 25th Adner Colon will be attending an exclusive Action Freedom Legacy (AFL) Legacy Mastermind event at Hasbrouck Heights. The trainers for the event are Aaron and Sophia Raskin and members of the Loyal 9 who are top producers in the online marketing industry. Here's ...

Low serum adiponectin levels predict an increased future risk for developing asthma in middle-aged women, particularly among smokers, according to a new study. "Adiposity is known to be related to asthma. Although a causal link between adiponectin (a protein produced by adipose tissue) and asthma has been demonstrated in mice, the evidence in humans has been conflicting," said lead author Akshay Sood, MD, MPH, associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. "In an ...

Tampa, Fla., USA – Today, during the 41st Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 36th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, an abstract titled "Periodontal Therapy Reduces Hospitalizations and Medical Care Costs in Diabetics" to determine if periodontal treatment was associated with the number of hospitalizations and cost of medical care among diabetics with periodontal disease. A longitudinal study compared medical costs for diabetic subjects with periodontal disease ...

Orlando – March 23, 2012. Preoperative treatment with aromatase inhibitors increases the likelihood that postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer will be able to have breast-conserving surgery rather than a mastectomy, according to the results of a national clinical trial presented today at the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. "We found that half of the postmenopausal women in the study who initially faced having a mastectomy were able to have breast-conserving surgery after being treated for four months with an aromatase ...

A new epilepsy gene for idiopathic epilepsy in Belgian Shepherds has been found in the canine chromosome 37. The research of Professor Hannes Lohi and his group conducted at the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center opens new avenues for the understanding of the genetic background of the most common canine epilepsies. The research also has an impact on the understanding of common epilepsies in humans. The research is published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE on March 23, 2012. Epilepsy affects about 1-5% of the human population at some stage of ...

Vienna, Austria: Women who are overweight or obese when they are diagnosed with breast cancer are at higher risk of cancer recurrence or related death than are leaner women, according to a new study to be presented to the 8th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) today (Friday). This finding held true even though the study mandated that chemotherapy dosage be adjusted for body weight, and adds further to the evidence that lifestyle factors can influence cancer prognosis, a researcher will tell the conference. Dr. Jennifer Ligibel, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber ...

On March 24, 2012 Mike Hoesly attended the Legacy Mastermind in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. The mastermind is a group of 20 internet marketers getting together to share industry secrets and tips of the trade. The Loyal 9 Revolution and Team Rashkin are leading the event. These two groups have dominated the home business industry for the past few years drawing in hundreds of thousands of leads and millions of dollars as a result. Hoesly has attended many live events in the industry and the skills learned here will only add to his repertoire. Hoesly says," Live events ...

Vienna, Austria: The use of ultrasound-guided surgery to remove tumours from women who have palpable breast cancer is much more successful than standard surgery in excising all the cancerous tissue while sparing as much healthy tissue as possible, according to the results of a randomised controlled trial. As a consequence, researchers told the eighth European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) today (Friday) they expect their findings will change surgical practice and ultrasound-guided surgery (USS) should become the norm for excising palpable tumours i.e. those that can ...

One cup or two faces? What we believe we see in one of the most famous optical illusions changes in a split second; and so does the path that the information takes in the brain. In a new theoretical study, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, the Bernstein Center Göttingen and the German Primate Center now show how this is possible without changing the cellular links of the network. The direction of information flow changes, depending on the time pattern of communication between brain areas. This reorganisation can be triggered even ...

When this weekend's (March 24 to 25, 2012) Legacy Training weekend was announced a few months ago, it got the attention of Success Coach Peter Hobler. Reading through the details, Hobler found out that the event included training by nine of the internet marketing industry's top leaders sharing their know how, expertise and even some of their marketing and leadership secrets. Hobler started getting excited and shared, "When I read you needed to bring your computer for both actual hands on and over the shoulder training, I knew I had to do whatever I could to attend ...

Vienna, Austria: Results from a phase III clinical trial evaluating a new treatment for breast cancer in post-menopausal women show that the combination of two cancer drugs, everolimus and exemestane, significantly improves bone strength and reduces the chances of cancer spreading (metastasising) in the bone. Professor Michael Gnant told the eighth European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) today (Friday) that the latest results from the BOLERO-2 trial would change clinical practice. "These results indicate a new standard of care for women with advanced oestrogen receptor ...

Even in places as seemly well-studied as the national parks of North America, new species are still being discovered. Using ultraviolet light that cause scorpions to fluoresce a ghostly glow, researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) have discovered an intriguing new scorpion in Death Valley National Park. They named the species Wernerius inyoensis, after the Inyo Mountains where it was found. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. This new species is small, only 16 mm in length. "We almost overlooked this one during the survey" ...

A new and unusual wasp species has been discovered during an expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It was independently also found in the insect collections of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where it was awaiting discovery since the 1930s, when it had been collected on Sulawesi. The new species is pitch-black, has an enormous body size, and its males have long, sickle-shaped jaws. The findings have now been described in the open access journal ZooKeys. The species belongs into the digger wasp family, which is a diverse group of wasps with several thousands ...

Realcomm Conference Group will be hosting a webinar on March 29 from 12:30pm to 2:00 pm (ET) to define high performance buildings and discuss the ways in which operation, design and organization of the systems play a key role in this new paradigm. Ryan Allbaugh, CIO of Childress Klein will lead the discussion along with Scott Boehm, Director Vykon Channel, Tridium; Paul Oswald, President, Environmental Systems Inc. (ESI); John Petze, Principal, SkyFoundry; and David Weinerth, EVP Marketing, SCIenergy Inc. "We're hearing a lot about this topic as smart connected ...

The important changes to the way scientists name new plants that took effect on 1 January 2012 included the fall of the so-called Latin requirement - a stipulation that descriptions or diagnoses of new species had to be in Latin. The new rules make it possible to take full advantage of an ongoing revolution in how botanists and mycologists verify that a particular species is indeed new to science: Many studies now routinely include the sequencing of short DNA regions that will amplify easily, even when the DNA comes from old specimens. Such "barcoding" sequences can ...

There is a seemingly endless selection of affordable sedans on the market these days, but none are more appealing to Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com than the 2012 Volkswagen Passat. Kbb.com recently unveiled its 10 Best Sedans Under $25,000 list, placing the all-new Passat at the top. Volkswagen's newest midsize offering is available at any VW dealership and was singled out for its pitch-perfect mix of space, refinement and affordability. Kbb.com evaluated sedans on typical factors like comfortable ride, handling, fuel efficiency, features and value, but it was sportiness, ...

A study by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) into the development of speech about the Civil War on Television Española (Spain's national state owned public television broadcaster) states that from the 70's, public television stopped portraying republicans as national enemies and acknowledged their bravery as combatants. "In the final years of the dictatorship, in Television Española (TVE) documentaries and news programmes, they began to recognise the merits of the defeated republicans, claiming that they simply had a different stance, and they even had 'love ...

An international team of scientists, including some from Majorca and the Canary Islands, have described a new type of fossil scops owl, the first extinct bird on the archipelago of Madeira (Portugal). Otus mauli, which was also the first nocturnal bird of prey described in the area, lived on land and became extinct as a result of humans arriving on the island. Twenty years ago, the German researcher Harald Pieper discovered fossil remains of a small nocturnal bird of prey in Madeira, which, until now, had not been studied in depth. The international team of palaeontologists ...

ImageFLEX is an agreement unique to Balreed which allows organisations to produce the images they need on the devices they choose. Within an all-inclusive MPS agreement, clients are not restricted to defined volumes of mono or colour images, or volumes per device. Balreed's Group Marketing Director Gary Downey said: "The clue is in the title with ImageFLEX. This is a new approach to MPS that overcomes the restrictions and compromises of other managed service offerings in the market. With ImageFLEX our clients will benefit from the UK's most pro-active Managed Print ...

Researchers at the European Congress of Osteoporosis & Osteoarthritis in Bordeaux have presented new data * which shows that the economic burden of fragility fractures in the 27 member states of the European Union far exceeds previous estimates, with hip fractures accounting for around 55% of costs. The investigators used a population based model to estimate the economic burden of fractures in 2010, using data on facture incidence, costs for pharmaceutical prevention and post-fracture health care, mortality, and population size to estimate total costs. Data for hip, ...