People with rheumatoid arthritis are at a greater risk of irregular heart rhythm (known as atrial fibrillation) and stroke compared with the general population, finds a study published on bmj.com today. Rheumatoid arthritis is already linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure, and is an important risk factor for stroke. But no study has yet examined whether it increases the risk of atrial fibrillation – a condition associated with an increased long term risk of stroke, heart failure, and death. So a team of researchers set out to examine the risk ...

It's one of the most commonly occurring medical conditions – chronic venous in-sufficiency (CVI). Almost ten million German citizens suffer from weak veins that require treatment, with twice as many women being affected as men. The cause of this widespread condition is restricted functioning of the venous valves in the legs. If the venous valve is no longer able to close properly, blood will observe the laws of gravity in between heartbeats and flow down to collect in the legs. This leads to edemas, and can cause open ulcers in particularly severe cases. CVI is usually ...

The Empire Invert Mini paintball gun features some of the most impressive new technology in the paintball industry in a compact, lightweight package. Coming in at under 2 pounds fully loaded, the Empire Invert Mini manages to pack a lot of power into one of the lightest paintball guns available on the market today. According to Action Center Paintball, one of the world's largest Internet retailers of paintball equipment, the Empire Invert Mini is one of the best selling models in their extensive online paintball gun catalog. Empire is one of the best known manufacturers ...

A good wine is unmistakable. It has its own particular taste, its own characteristic and singular aroma. None of this happens by accident: the production of quality wines is an art form in its own right. The vintner has to plant the right variety of grape, harvest and press it at just the right moment and store the grape juice properly for fermentation. "Even if you get everything right in the preparations, there's still an element of risk," explains Dr. Mark Bücking of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME. It is not just location, type ...

Skin problems are the most common adverse effects from new anti-cancer drugs. Ralf Gutzmer, from the Hannover Medical School (MHH), and co-authors now summarize the current state of knowledge in the recent edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(8): 133-40). Adverse effects of the skin include rashes, nail problems, and the hand-foot syndrome. The substance class of multikinase inhibitors causes such cutaneous adverse effects in up to 34% of patients. The proportion of patients with adverse effects is even higher for the selective kinase ...

The Rapid City skyline has changed forever offering a sustainable glow with the official crowning of the newly branded downtown Adoba Eco Hotel exterior signage package. Teaming up with Lauretano Sign Group, a national provider of eco-savvy signage products, Atmosphere Hospitality Management Services owner of the Adoba Eco Hotel brand continues to forge their way down a path of sustainability. The unveiling of the new Adoba Eco Hotel sign is the latest sustainable enhancement to the property, which is one of Rapid City's most recognizable buildings. The environmentally-friendly ...

Most plants live in symbiosis with soil fungi and are supplied with water and nutrients as a result. Based on the petunia, plant biologists at the University of Zurich have now discovered that a special transport protein is required to establish this symbiotic relationship. The targeted control of this protein could lead to greater harvests. About 80 percent of all terrestrial plants enter into a symbiotic relationship with fungi living in the soil. The fungi provide the plant with water, important nutrients like phosphate and nitrate, and certain trace elements like ...

Forty years ago, LSD was used in the treatment of alcoholics - with good results. Perhaps it's time to look at it again? In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, researchers in many places in the world experimented with LSD in the treatment of various disorders, including alcoholism. Not all experiments were scientifically tenable by today's standards, but some were. Now Teri Krebs and Pål-Ørjan Johansen, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), have taken a closer look at these experiments. The results of all of these studies pointed in the same ...

Research Now, the leading global online sampling and data collection company, today announced that it has further developed its unique B2B screening tool, now enabling clients in North America to collect additional insight on B2B respondents in Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The tool was first launched on Research Now's US business panel in October 2011, where SIC codes are also available, and is exclusive to Research Now among online panels. Now with an international scope, the tool will work in conjunction with the pre-screening process to provide ...

March 8, 2012, Shenzhen, China – BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, reported that it can use next-generation sequencing to analyze DNA as low as 200 ng from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples. This advancement enables researchers to easily identify the genetic details and pathology mechanism of FFPE disease samples, especially for some rare tumors, with higher accuracy and reliability than existing techniques. FFPE samples are common biological materials for disease diagnoses and scientific research. Because FFPE tissue samples may be stored indefinitely ...

Researchers at King's College London and Hiroshima University, Japan, have identified a specific gene linked to throat cancer following a genetic study of a family with 10 members who have developed the condition. The study, published today in American Journal of Human Genetics, uncovered a mutation in the ATR gene, demonstrating the first evidence of a link between abnormality in this gene and an inherited form of cancer. The researchers say this finding raises new ideas about genetic factors linked to throat cancer and provides a platform for exploring the role of ...

Modular Industrial Computers, the "Leaders' Choice" for plant floor computing, announces new models to its successful line of NEMA 4X workstations. The FS PowerBox 17-HP and FS PowerBox 19-HP combine the proven, award winning, FS (Field Serviceable) PowerBox platform with Hewlett Packard's (HP) T5740. The system is shipped fully assembled, tested and ready for quick installation into the most demanding industrial applications. The FS PowerBox has proven itself as the most flexible, cost effective solution for companies looking to deploy Thin Clients into the ...

Growing older and being overweight are not necessarily associated with a decrease in mental well-being, according to a cross-cultural study looking at quality of life and health status in the US and the UK. The study, led by Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick, analysed lifestyle and health patterns in more than 10,000 people in both countries and their links to participants' mental and physical quality of life and health status. Quality of life was evaluated using a measure which takes in eight different factors including perception of general health, ...

A research team from the Netherlands assessed the impact of wine and resveratrol (a natural polyphenol found in high quantities in red wine) on lung function. It also looked at genetic factors and mechanisms by which resveratrol might be absorbed by the body and its possible effect on longevity of life. The authors report that pure resveratrol intake was associated with higher lung volumes and that white wine intake (but not red wine intake) and was associated with lower risk of airway obstruction. They report that the genetic factors studied did not relate to the associations ...

In today's computer processors, much of the power put into running the processor is being wasted. A research team at Case Western Reserve University came up with a novel idea called fine-grained power gating, which saves power and money in a couple of ways: less energy would be used, and less heat produced. "Using less power produces less heat. Less heat means less cooling is needed," said Swarup Bhunia, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and an author of the research. "That can avoid the need for a big fan to cool off the processor, which saves ...

Boston, MA – When babies are born prematurely, they are thrust into a hospital environment that while highly successful at saving their lives, is not exactly the same as the mother's womb where ideal development occurs. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is equipped with highly skilled care givers and incubators that regulate temperature and humidity, but Amir Lahav, ScD, PhD, director of the Neonatal Research Lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) thought that something was missing - simulation of the maternal sounds that a baby would hear in the womb. Now, new ...

In the nearly five decades since the first lunar surveys were conducted as part of NASA's Apollo program, scientists have advanced a number of increasingly complex theories to explain the vast swaths of highly magnetic material that had been found in the some parts of the Moon's crust. But now a team of researchers from Harvard, MIT and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, have proposed a surprisingly simple explanation for the unusual findings – the magnetic anomalies are remnants of a massive asteroid collision. As described in a paper published March 9 in Science, ...

Cambridge, Mass. - March 8, 2012 - Researchers in applied physics have cleared an important hurdle in the development of advanced materials, called metamaterials, that bend light in unusual ways. Working at a scale applicable to infrared light, the Harvard team has used extremely short and powerful laser pulses to create three-dimensional patterns of tiny silver dots within a material. Those suspended metal dots are essential for building futuristic devices like invisibility cloaks. The new fabrication process, described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, advances ...

Toronto – Countries that more strictly uphold their cultural norms are less likely to promote women as leaders – unless those norms support equal opportunity for both sexes, shows a new paper from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. "Cultural tightness can prevent the emergence of women leaders because tighter cultures may make a society's people more resistant to changing the traditionally-held practice that placed men in leadership roles," says Prof. Soo Min Toh, who is cross-appointed to the Rotman School and the University of Toronto Mississauga, ...

Winston-Salem, N.C. – March 8, 2012 -- Maternal obesity may contribute to cognitive impairment in extremely premature babies, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. "Although in the past decade medical advances have improved the survival rate of babies born at less than seven months, they are still at very high risk for mental developmental delays compared with full-term infants," said Jennifer Helderman, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. "This study shows that obesity doesn't ...

Washington, DC – A collaborative team of researchers at Children's National Medical Center are making progress in understanding how to protect infants needing cardiac surgery from white matter injury, which impacts the nervous system. The synergistic team from the Children's National Heart Institute and Center for Neuroscience Research at Children's National Medical Center was led by Nobuyuki Ishibashi, MD, Joseph Scafidi, DO, Richard Jonas, MD, and Vittorio Gallo, PhD. The study, published online in the January edition of Circulation, identifies the stages of white matter ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 6, 2012 – The Canadian Journal of Cardiology has published a paper on the effect of socioeconomic factors on myocardial infarction outcomes. This study describes an analysis of the effect of socioeconomic class on outcomes after a first myocardial infarction ("heart attack"). The study analyzed detailed databases in Quebec and found that socioeconomic deprivation did not negatively affect access to the most advanced high-level health care – clearly a success for the Canadian public healthcare system. Nevertheless, mortality rates were slightly ...

AUSTIN, Texas — Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, chemists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a 3-D paper sensor that may be able to test for diseases such as malaria and HIV for less than 10 cents a pop. Such low-cost, "point-of-care" sensors could be incredibly useful in the developing world, where the resources often don't exist to pay for lab-based tests, and where, even if the money is available, the infrastructure often doesn't exist to transport biological samples to the lab. "This is about medicine for everybody," says Richard Crooks, ...

Young America, http://www.young-america.com, an incentive marketing firm, has hired Steve Schulte as senior sales executive responsible for new business development initiatives and strategic growth focusing on opportunities among large clients. Prior to joining Young America, Schulte worked for Restaurant.com as national account manager. He previously held leadership positions in the sales departments of loyalty and incentive companies Maritz, Inc. and Meridian Enterprises, and has experience in the technology, automotive, hospitality and insurance industries. He holds ...

Sometimes the fastest pathway from point A to point B is not a straight line: for example, if you're underwater and contending with strong and shifting currents. But figuring out the best route in such settings is a monumentally complex problem — especially if you're trying to do it not just for one underwater vehicle, but for a swarm of them moving all at once toward separate destinations. But that's just what a team of engineers at MIT has figured out how to do, in research results to be presented in May at the annual IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. ...