Last Thursday, February 16, 2012, The House of Blues in Chicago, IL featured hometown hip hop artist Nick Carter Green. The nearly sold out crowd rocked to the rhythms of jazz, funk, and rap as Green was backed by legendary percussionist Kahil El'Zabar. El'Zabar, also a Chicago native who has worked with Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie and Paul Simon, called the show "a conversion of generations to celebrate the power of soul through hip hop." Opening with his remix to Drake's "Headlines", which went viral on World Star Hip Hop back in ...

A large-scale genomic study conducted in Bangladesh has discovered genetic variants that control arsenic metabolism and elevate the risk of skin lesions in people chronically exposed to arsenic. In PLoS Genetics, researchers from the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh, and the University of North Carolina report that genetic variants found near the enzyme for metabolizing the chemical into a less toxic form are associated with an individual's risk of developing arsenic-related disease. Since ...

When one fish gets injured, the rest of the school takes off in fear, tipped off by a mysterious substance known as "Schreckstoff" (meaning "scary stuff" in German). Now, researchers reporting online on February 23 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology have figured out what that scary stuff is really made of. Within that chemical brew is a special type of sugar found in abundance in fish skin. When a fish is wounded, fragments of the sugar known as chondroitin sulfate alarm other fish nearby. "Our results provide a solution to a 70-year-old puzzle: the nature of ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., February 23, 2012 – Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) and the Medical School of Hannover in Germany recently discovered how the botulinum neurotoxin, a potential bioterrorism agent, survives the hostile environment in the stomach on its journey through the human body. Their study, published February 24 in Science, reveals the first 3D structure of a neurotoxin together with its bodyguard, a protein made simultaneously in the same bacterium. The bodyguard keeps the toxin safe through the gut, then lets go as the ...

It's 2012, which for the plastic surgery industry means more advancements than ever before. While groundbreaking technology and the emergence of new surgical techniques are exciting, potential patients should be sure that these innovations are time-tested before seriously considering them. A tummy tuck surgeon in Birmingham, Dr. Michael Beckenstein, stresses that patients should choose a surgeon based on the doctor's qualifications and experience with a particular procedure, and not just because he or she offers the "latest and greatest" treatments. "As ...

When Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale. It weighed in at around 12 pounds -- and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia. Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, caused by the release of vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. About a third of mammal ...

One of the first large-scale genomic studies conducted in a developing country has discovered genetic variants that elevate the risk for skin lesions in people chronically exposed to arsenic. Genetic changes found near the enzyme for metabolizing the chemical into a less toxic form can significantly increase an individual's risk for developing arsenic-related disease. The discovery could point the way to new screening and intervention options for people who are exposed to groundwater with high levels of arsenic, said scientists at the University of Chicago Medicine, Columbia ...

Since in 2006 an unknown leafmining moth was found in North Italian vineyards by Mario Baldessari and colleagues, often in great numbers, scientists have tried to put a name to this apparently new invader. Italian scientists from the Fondazione Edmund Mach di San Michele all'Adige and the Università di Padova turned for help to taxonomists in the Netherlands and United States. The new species was described in the open access journal ZooKeys. The family to which the moth belongs, the shield bearing leafminers (Heliozelidae) appeared to be poorly studied in North America, ...

Global Gaming Events launches another whopping $5,000 casino freeroll tournament with Casino Titan to be held in March 2012. This event runs on Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 3pm ET to Sunday, March 4th, 2012 3pm ET. All players who have made at least one deposit or reload of a minimum of $50 during the month of February 2012 are eligible to play. Players must also pre-register for the event with Global Gaming Events to be eligible. The tournament formats will be a 10 minute 5,000 Starting Chip Slot Tournaments and will have a maximum of 1000 players. Each player will ...

Researchers at the EPFL have identified an important mechanism that could lead to the design of more effective cancer vaccines. Their discovery of a new-found role of the lymphatic system in tumour growth shows how tumours evade detection by using a patient's own immune system. Tumour cells present antigens or protein markers on their surfaces which make them identifiable to the host immune system. In the last decade, cancer vaccines have been designed that work by exposing the patient's immune cells to tumour-associated antigens and so priming them to kill cells that ...

Sani Beach Club is situated on its own stretch of private beach within Sani Resort on the beautiful Kassandra peninsula in Halkidiki, Northern Greece. New Dining Options There are three exceptional restaurants at Sani Beach Club - Dunes, Olympos and Ouzerie, each has redesigned its menu to offer guests a more traditional Greek gourmet experience. The new menu at Ouzerie has an innovative new twist that is similar to Sani Resort's famous new-age Greek restaurant Tomata. There will be a new Greek themed breakfast menu offering guests traditional morning specialities ...

Plants often regarded as common weeds such as thistles, buttercups and clover could be critical in safe guarding fragile food webs on UK farms according to Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Published tomorrow in Science, researchers from the University of Bristol detail the interactions that occur between the different food webs commonly found on farms throughout the UK and the robustness of these interactions to species loss. In one of the first studies to look simultaneously at multiple types of food webs, the researchers ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- As scientists continue developing climate change projection models, paleontologists studying an extreme short-term global warming event have discovered direct evidence about how mammals respond to rising temperatures. In a study appearing in Science Feb. 24, researchers from eight institutions led by scientists from the University of Florida and University of Nebraska found a correlation between temperature and body size in mammals by following the evolution of the earliest horses about 56 million years ago: As temperatures increased, their body ...

More than three quarters (77%) of cancer patients who first present to their family doctors (GPs) with suspicious symptoms are referred to hospital after only one or two consultations, a new study has found. However, the new research also shows a wide variation in the number of times a cancer patient sees their general practitioner before they are referred to a specialist, with the most pre-referral consultations occurring when the cancer was one of the less common types, or when the patient was either female, young, or an older person from an ethnic minority. The research ...

A compound in citrus fruits may reduce your stroke risk, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. This prospective study is one of the first in which researchers examine how consuming flavonoid subclasses affects the risk of stroke. Flavonoids are a class of compounds present in fruits, vegetables, dark chocolate and red wine. "Studies have shown higher fruit, vegetable and specifically vitamin C intake is associated with reduced stroke risk," said Aedín Cassidy, Ph.D., the study's lead author and professor of nutrition at ...

Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics have discovered an answer to the long-standing mystery of how brain cells can both remember new memories while also maintaining older ones. They found that specific neurons in a brain region called the dentate gyrus serve distinct roles in memory formation depending on whether the neural stem cells that produced them were of old versus young age. The study will appear in the March 30 issue of Cell and links the cellular basis of memory formation to the birth of new neurons -- a finding that could unlock ...

Stavros "LOTSandLOTS" Ioannou, one of the latest up and coming poker players to be sponsored and mentored by Badbeat.com, has begun with a winning streak that started with two MTTs then, the following week, 2nd in the EUR5k guaranteed EUR50 Turbo on Poker Time and 3rd in the $10k Guaranteed $5 Rebuy on Poker Encore for $2.1k. Now bankrolled and tutored by Badbeat.com, prospects look good for the young poker player. "My first day with Badbeat.com was a good one -- I played 6 MTTs in total and final tabled 3/6 winning two of them," said Ioannou. "My ...

A new study reports that the disintegration of the Maya Civilization may have been related to relatively modest reductions in rainfall. The study was led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK. Professor Rohling says: "Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya Civilization flourished and its collapse – between AD 800-950. These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall. But they were large ...

Nursing home residents over the age of 65 who take certain antipsychotic medication for dementia are at an increased risk of death, suggests a research paper published today on bmj.com. The Harvard Medical School study, the largest ever undertaken among US nursing home residents, looked at 75,445 older nursing home residents from 45 US states between 2001 and 2005. All nursing home residents studied were 65 and over. Risks of mortality were looked at during a six month period. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned in 2005 that atypical antipsychotic drugs ...

In the war between parasite and host, the parasitic wasp, Aphidius ervi, and the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, are locked in a battle for survival. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Biology shows that this cunning parasite sniffs out differences between protected and unprotected aphids, and alters its egg-laying strategy, in order to overwhelm aphid defenses and ensure survival of wasp offspring. The wasp, A. ervi, lays an egg inside the pea aphid, where the egg hatches and converts the aphid's insides into a wasp nursery. The wasp ...

Spacious new homes on large, hillside homesites in Fair Oaks Ranch are coming to Santa Clarita at Crest View, where Los Angeles homebuilder Pardee Homes has set Saturday, March 3 for grand opening festivities. The Crest View sales center will open at 10 a.m. and home shoppers are invited to enjoy self-guided tours of 4 fully decorated model homes. Grand opening visitors can also take in a lively session with Sandy Krogh of Culinary Consultants. Demonstrating Crest View's upscale G.E. appliance line in a model home kitchen, Sandy will present delicious and easy springtime ...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide, especially in developed countries, and there is currently no known treatment or cure or for the vast majority of AMD patients. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Medicine has identified genes whose expression levels can identify people with AMD, as well as tell apart AMD subtypes. It is estimated that 6.5% of people over age 40 in the US currently have AMD. There is an inheritable genetic risk factor but risk is also increased for smokers and ...

In recent years, a number of controversial claims have been made about the female mammal's egg supply – that it is renewed over her adult lifetime (as opposed to the conventional understanding that she is born with all of her eggs), and that the source of these eggs is stem cells that originate in the bone marrow. Now, Weizmann Institute scientists have disproved one of those claims and pointed in new directions toward resolving the other. Their findings, based on an original method for reconstructing lineage trees for cells, were published online today in PLoS Genetics. The ...

Scientists have discovered a new target in their fight against the devastating global disease 'malaria' thanks to the discovery of a new protein involved in the parasite's life cycle. The research has uncovered a vital player in the sexual phase of the malaria parasite's reproduction which could prove an effective target for new treatments to stop the disease in its tracks. The scientists from The University of Nottingham's School of Biology, with collaborators from the Universities of Leicester, Oxford, Imperial College London and Leiden in the Netherlands, have just ...

CHICAGO --- Millions of "good" bacteria exist harmoniously on the skin and in the intestines of healthy people. When harmful bacteria attack, the immune system fights back by sending out white blood cells to destroy the disease-causing interlopers. But how do white blood cells know which bacteria are good and which are harmful? Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers studied one type of white blood cell known as a macrophage, which is among the immune system's first to detect and eliminate harmful bacteria. The research team, led by Christian ...