The Andes of southern South America form a hostile mountain range with glaciers, salty deserts and meagre high elevation steppes. Birds from more moderate climate zones cross this mountain range only rarely. Nevertheless, many species live on both sides of the Andes, as in the case of the burrowing parrot Cyanoliseus patagonus. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, together with colleagues from the University of Freiburg and the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology, Vienna, found that the ancestral population of the burrowing parrot occupied what is ...

Red Bus Bingo is giving its players the chance to enjoy a City Break. The game is taking place on Sunday 2nd October at 10pm. Tickets for this game cost GBP2 tickets or players can earn one free ticket for every 500 City Break points earned. The prize includes return travel to London as well as three 3 nights' Hotel accommodation, afternoon tea at the Ritz, a pair of tickets to see a top West End show and GBP500 spending cash. There are several ways players can earn City Break points. They can email in their stories about why they should win a trip to London and they ...

MADISON, WI, JULY 13, 2011 -- Winter cover crops are an important component of nutrient cycling, soil cover and organic matter content. Although its benefits are well documented, cover crop use in farming systems is relatively low. Research has shown that time and money are the two primary reasons why farmers are hesitant to adopt the technique. Developing innovative and cost-effective crop cover systems could increase the use of winter cover crops. A scientist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and colleagues investigated the potential use of self-seeding ...

High doses of the hormone progesterone can kill neuroblastoma cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found in laboratory research. The results, published in the journal Molecular Medicine, suggest that progesterone could be used to fight neuroblastoma, the most common form of cancer affecting small children. More research is necessary to determine the optimal dose, how long progesterone treatment should last and if it should be used alone or in combination with radiation or chemotherapy. Emory scientists ...

Wink Bingo is giving its players the chance to win a share of GBP500 thanks to the Pole Position competition. Wink Bingo players will earn points for playing games at Wink Bingo. The person with the most points when the chequered flag is waved on July 17 will be the winner. Each of the top 10 will win a prize. Players earn a point for every GBP3 they wager on any instant game. Additionally they can earn two points for every 50p wagered on bingo. This isn't the only competition that Wink Bingo is having. The Sizzling Summer bingo promotion allows players to win a ...

Hospitalized patients who had conversations about religion and spirituality with the healthcare team were the most satisfied with their overall care. However, 20 percent of patients who would have valued these discussions say their desires went unmet, according to a new study¹ by Joshua Williams from the University of Chicago, USA, and his colleagues. Their work appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Religious and spiritual concerns are particularly prominent during times of illness, suffering and death. Some medical leaders ...

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that community members correlate an increase in HIV vulnerability among adolescent girls with weak structural support systems. While adolescent girls are three to four times more likely than adolescent boys to be living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, few studies have examined the reasons community members believe girls are so vulnerable to HIV. The findings are published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. Carol Underwood, PhD, lead author of the study and assistant ...

Two Baylor University professors use a bottle of Coca-Cola to teach basic business principles to minimally educated entrepreneurs in developing countries. "Sold in more than 200 countries and territories, it is a readily available resource for teaching business lessons in developing countries," said Blaine McCormick, Ph.D., professor of management at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. "Our goal is to teach small business owners how to increase demand for what they sell and the many ways that Coke does that." Writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Management ...

Tel Aviv — Stem cells from early embryos can be coaxed into becoming a diverse array of specialized cells to revive and repair different areas of the body. Therapies based on these stem cells have long been contemplated for the treatment of diabetes, but have been held back by medical and ethical drawbacks. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University are capitalizing on the "memories" of stem cells generated from adult cells to bring new hope to sufferers of juvenile or type 1 diabetes, which affects three million people in the United States. Prof. Shimon Efrat of TAU's ...

This time of year is Festival time. Whether it is Glastonbury or Bestival, thousands leave their homes and offices and trek out to the countryside where they can enjoy the music, the outdoors and nature. Posh Bingo is commemorating the festivals with a number of bingo promotions. There is Fest-Essentials. Here players who bingo the most on the digital camera pattern will win. Then there is the Hot Tune where the player who bingos the most on the candlestick pattern and the player who bingos the most on the letter C pattern, will each win GBP15 bingo funds. Finally there ...

A breakthrough in sensing at Rice University could make finding signs of Alzheimer's disease nearly as simple as switching on a light. The technique reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society should help researchers design better medications to treat the devastating disease. The lab of Rice bioengineer Angel Martí is testing metallic molecules that naturally attach themselves to a collection of beta amyloid proteins called fibrils, which form plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers. When the molecules, complexes of dipyridophenazine ruthenium, ...

NEW YORK (July 13, 2011) – The Wildlife Conservation Society has discovered a surprisingly healthy population of rare snow leopards living in the mountainous reaches of northeastern Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, according to a new study. The discovery gives hope to the world's most elusive big cat, which calls home to some of the world's tallest mountains. Between 4,500 and 7,500 snow leopards remain in the wild scattered across a dozen countries in Central Asia. The study, which appears in the June 29th issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Several types of cancer, including stomach, liver and colon, are far more common in men than in women. Some scientists have theorized that differences in lifestyle, such as diet and smoking, may account for the discrepancy, but growing evidence suggests that the differences are rooted in basic biological differences between men and women. Adding to that evidence, a new study from MIT shows that treating male mice with estrogen dramatically lowers their rates of stomach cancer — specifically, cancers caused by chronic infection by the bacterium Helicobacter ...

College Park, Md. (July 13, 2011) -- Conventional wisdom suggests that because we're approaching the theoretical limit on individual wind turbine efficiency, wind energy is now a mature technology. But California Institute of Technology researchers revisited some of the fundamental assumptions that guided the wind industry for the past 30 years, and now believe that a new approach to wind farm design—one that places wind turbines close together instead of far apart—may provide significant efficiency gains. This challenges the school of thought that the only remaining ...

A custom-built, $2.5 million "split magnet" system with the potential to revolutionize scientific research in a variety of fields has made its debut at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. The world-record magnet is operating at 25 tesla, easily besting the 17.5 tesla French record set in 1991 for this type of magnet. ("Tesla," named for early 20th-century inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, is a measurement of the strength of a magnetic field.) In addition to being 43 percent more powerful than the previous world best, the new magnet ...

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, with assistance from the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, have found a new approach to the creation of customized therapies for virulent flu strains that resist current antiviral drugs. The findings, published online this week in Nature Communications, could aid development of new drugs that exploit so-called flu protein 'pockets.' Using powerful computer simulations on SDSC's new Trestles system, launched earlier this year under a $2.8 million National Science Foundation (NSF) award, UCI's Rommie ...

To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications and External Relations staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov. MATERIALS – Moving toward nanorobots . . . Nanoscale robots that can flow through blood or repair complex electronics may yet be a possibility with the help of a new strategy developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A new University of Maryland-led study finds that 'sex' between the virus responsible for the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1) and a common type of avian flu virus (H9N2) can produce offspring -- new combined flu viruses -- with the potential for creating a new influenza pandemic. Of course, viruses don't actually have sex, but University of Maryland virologist Daniel Perez, who directed the new study, says new pandemic viruses are formed mainly through a process called reassortment, which can best be described as viral sexual reproduction. "In reassortment, ...

Fewer Mexican immigrants returned home from the United States during 2008 and 2009 than in the two years prior to the start of the recession, a finding that contradicts the notion that the economic downturn has hastened return migration to Mexico, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The study, published online by the journal Demography, is the first to track return migration trends by analyzing household survey information routinely collected by the Mexican government. "The recession in the United States and the global financial crisis did not increase the number ...

A new promotion Tasty Bingo has cooked up is the Friday Feast which takes place every Friday evening at 8.30pm. A player can win GBP150 for a full house, GBP30 for two lines and GBP20 for one line. Cards for this game cost just 50p each. Players are able to buy anywhere from one to 48 cards for this game. Only funded players can participate in this and should there be more than one winner, the prizes will be shared. Then there is the GBP500 Tasty Treat Bingo. This takes place on Wednesday nights at 9pm. A player can win GBP300 for a full house which is indeed a Tasty ...

Irvine, Calif., July 13, 2011 — Human neural stem cells are capable of helping people regain learning and memory abilities lost due to radiation treatment for brain tumors, a UC Irvine study suggests. Research with rats found that stem cells transplanted two days after cranial irradiation restored cognitive function, as measured in one- and four-month assessments. In contrast, irradiated rats not treated with stem cells showed no cognitive improvement. "Our findings provide solid evidence that such cells can be used to reverse radiation-induced damage of healthy tissue ...

Scientists at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle have determined the atomic architecture of a sodium channel. The achievement opens new possibilities for molecular medicine researchers around the world in designing better drugs for pain, epilepsy, and heart rhythm disturbances. Sodium channels are pores in the membranes of excitable cells – such as brain nerve cells or beating heart cells – that emit electrical signals. Sodium channels selectively open and close to allow the passage of millions of tiny charged particles across the cell membrane. The gated flow ...

Advanced Visual Systems Inc., a leading data visualization software and solutions company (OTCIQ:AVSC; www.avs.com) has appointed Paula LaPuma to the post of Vice President of Business Development. LaPuma joins AVS to direct the expansion of the company's U.S. Enterprise and OEM solution licensing programs that provide comprehensive data visualization strategies to development teams that build business intelligence, customer analytics, risk management and social media solutions. According to Steve Sukman, Executive Vice President of AVS, "Paula LaPuma brings a highly ...

Seattle – Rice – which provides nearly half the daily calories for the world's population – could become adapted to climate change and some catastrophic events by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi, just-published U.S. Geological Survey-led research shows. In an effort to explore ways to increase the adaptability of rice to climatic scourges such as tsunamis and tidal surges that have already led to rice shortages, USGS researchers and their colleagues colonized two commercial varieties of rice with the spores of fungi that ...

BOTOX Cosmetic revolutionized cosmetic medicine. Since its approval by the FDA in 2002 for the treatment of glabellar lines, it has become the most popular cosmetic treatment in the world. In the US alone, more than 5 million treatments were performed in 2010 using BOTOX Cosmetic and similar compounds. However, many people still have questions about BOTOX Cosmetic. Here are some of the questions people have about BOTOX Cosmetic. What is BOTOX Cosmetic? BOTOX Cosmetic is a purified form of botulinum toxin A. The botulinum bacteria is named for the disease it causes, ...