Underground Elephant has pledged to donate $50,000 over the next year to the American Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Fund. The donation will support the relief efforts for survivors who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. "The impact of the earthquake and tsunami's devastation on the people in Japan is unconscionable," said Jason Kulpa, CEO of Underground Elephant. "All of us at Underground Elephant are deeply moved by the tremendous global support that Japan is receiving and hope that our donation will further assist relief efforts." Underground ...

Orlando, Fla. -- In mice models of breast cancer, researchers at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, a part of Georgetown University Medical Center, found that vitamin D significantly reduced development of estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer both in lean and obese mice, but had no beneficial effect in estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) cancer. In fact, obese mice destined to develop ER- breast cancer were clearly worse off than lean ER- mice if they were given vitamin D in their diet. The researchers, who will present their study at the American ...

"I know a girl. She loves a girl. She is her world. She always hides the tears that she cries. Baby don't hide. If you disagree then just let them be," proclaims "Let Her Love Her," the second single off of rising neo-soul/pop band, Sweet Leda's recently-released album, Need the Music. The song challenges prejudices and anti-gay sentiments by asserting that love is love. "Imagine if you finally found the right person, and you weren't even allowed to marry that person! Even worse, imagine that some people protested against you and demonstrated hate simply because of ...

Most patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) who have an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) now live more than seven years and those ICD patients with hereditary heart disease can live for decades, based on a scientific paper that will be presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, April 1-3. With ICM, the left ventricle of the patient's heart pumps blood poorly due to coronary artery disease. With DCM, the heart has become weakened and enlarged, and cannot pump blood efficiently. ...

Ranolazine (Ranexa, Gilead) is an effective anti-anginal therapy in patients with refractory angina; however, at one year only 59 percent of patients remained on the drug, according to a scientific poster that will be presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, April 1-3. Patients with refractory angina, who have chronic chest pain but are not candidates for revascularization, have limited therapeutic options and significant limitations in their quality of life, the study authors wrote. Conversely, patients with chronic angina ...

Each of the 400 students at Hartford Public High School Engineering and Green Technology Academy received a key to success in the form a DISC Behavioral and Workplace Motivator Assessment courtesy of Bill Bonnstetter, CEO and founder of TTI Performance Systems, Ltd. in Scottsdale, AZ and John Birch, founder and president of The Birch Group, LLC, a management consultant firm based in New Britain, CT. TTI Performance Systems generously provided the assessments and The Birch Group administered and coordinated the reports as well as provided training to the students. The value ...

The implementation of acute heart attack or ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) guidelines, protocols and standing orders in Minnesota community hospitals without cardiac catheterization labs has dramatically improved since 2003, according to a scientific poster that will be presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, April 1-3. Since the 1990s, the American College Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) STEMI guidelines recommended that all hospitals develop protocols and standing orders (reperfusion strategy, ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A panel of biomarkers appears to be able to identify the presence of lung cancer in the blood samples of people who have never smoked, according to data presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6. While lung cancer has long been linked to smoking, approximately one-fourth of patients with lung cancer have never smoked. Researchers are working on ways to identify the presence of lung cancer in these patients. Charlie Birse, Ph.D., associate director of product development at Celera Corporation, and colleagues are investigating ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Researchers investigating a novel biomarker test believe it is the most accurate yet in detecting proteins secreted from tumors caused by exposure to asbestos. Study results of this aptamer proteomic technology were presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6. In a blinded test performed under the auspices of the National Cancer Institute's Early Detection Research Network Biomarker Discovery Lab, the proteomic assay could detect 15 of 19 cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma that were in stage 1 or stage 2, making the test about ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Breast cancer risk can be assessed by examining the epithelial cells found in breast milk, according to preliminary study results presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6. This screening method has the potential to provide a personalized assessment of breast cancer risk, said lead researcher Kathleen F. Arcaro, Ph.D., associate professor of veterinary and animal sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Given that roughly 80 percent of women give birth, this screen would also cover a large percentage of the female population. ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Nicotine at doses similar to those found in most nicotine replacements therapies did not increase lung cancer tumor incidence, frequency or size, according to results of a mouse study presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6. "If you take our data and combine it with epidemiological data from Europe, even in people who quit smoking and maintain the use of nicotine replacement therapy for months or years, there does not appear to be increased lung cancer incidence," said Phillip A. Dennis, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator at ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — The use of aspirin at least once per month is associated with a significant decrease in pancreatic cancer risk, according to results of a large case-control study presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6. Xiang-Lin Tan, Ph.D., M.D., a research fellow at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said the findings from this large collaborative study are preliminary and do not encourage widespread use of aspirin for this purpose. "The results are not meant to suggest everyone should start taking aspirin once monthly to reduce their risk ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Researchers with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have found that people with lung cancer were significantly more likely to have several high-risk forms of human papillomavirus (HPV) antibodies compared to those who did not have lung cancer. These results, which were presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6, indicate that HPV antibodies are substantially increased in people with lung cancer. Devasena Anantharaman, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Genetic Epidemiology Group at the IARC in Lyon, France, and ...

ORLANDO, FL (April 4, 2011) – Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death among American men. Yet population-wide screening programs have not reduced the number of deaths from the disease. By focusing screening programs on the men who are at greatest risk for aggressive disease or diagnosis at a young age, researchers think they could improve mortality rates and personalize the screening approach. For that reason, scientists have been looking for genetic markers to help them identify exactly which men are at high risk and require regular screening. ...

ThinkHR, a leading provider of sophisticated, on-demand, Human Resources consulting services through brokers to employers, today announced a Strategic Provider alliance with Assurex Global. The alliance agreement formalizes the independent relationships which currently exist between ThinkHR and a number of Assurex Global Partner firms and further expands ThinkHR's presence and expertise within the Assurex Global network in the United States. ThinkHR's services include HR Hotline (a phone-based HR support service staffed by live, senior-level, human resources professionals), ...

MrsP.com, the award-winning children's website, released a new video today that looks at the issue of bullying - a hot topic among politicians and educators - from a child's point of view. Created from an original story, "The Peanut Butter and Jelly Hotdog," by 5-year-old Ivy Exum of Bremerton, WA, the video offers a funny, quirky take on a serious subject. The story was submitted to MrsP.com as an entry to its 2010 Be-A-Famous-Writer contest. Although it didn't win the contest, the story caught the eye of the website's producers, who felt it had an important message ...

This release is available in French. Researchers directed by Dr. Laurent Mottron at the University of Montreal's Centre for Excellence in Pervasive Development Disorders (CETEDUM) have determined that people with autism concentrate more brain resources in the areas associated with visual detection and identification, and conversely, have less activity in the areas used to plan and control thoughts and actions. This might explain their outstanding capacities in visual tasks. The team published their findings in Human Brain Mapping on April 4, 2011. Aiming to understand ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have investigated a novel protein test to detect early-stage, asbestos-related pulmonary cancer. The test can accurately identify proteins secreted from cancerous tumors caused by asbestos exposure. The study was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd Annual Meeting 2011 on April 4th. In a blinded test performed under the sponsorship of the National Cancer Institute's Early Detection Research Network Biomarker Discovery Lab, researchers detected 15 of 19 cases of stage 1 or stage 2 malignant pleural mesothelioma. ...

Reston, VA (March 29, 2011) — Medicare coverage and nationwide utilization of computed tomographic colonography (CTC), commonly referred to as virtual colonoscopy, has tripled in recent years, according to a study in the April issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org). CTC employs virtual reality technology to produce a three-dimensional visualization that permits a thorough and minimally invasive evaluation of the entire colon and rectum. CT colonography is an alternative to conventional optical colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening ...

The leading financial spread betting website www.CleanFinancial.com has launched a brand new set of trading tutorials. The guides, which cover the basics of spread betting, 24 hour trading, spread betting on stock markets and the value of tighter spreads, were introduced last week. The new tutorials have been added to the broad range of spread betting company reviews that the site already offers. Jenna Cutly, Editor for CleanFinancial.com, said that the new trading guides will complement the range of information that service already offers. "Spread betting is an ...

Babies are born earlier when their mothers live near a concentration of freeways and main roads, a study of 970 mothers and their newborn babies in Logan City, south of Brisbane, has found. Senior research fellow Associate Professor Adrian Barnett from Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) said the study, published today in the online journal Environmental Health, showed that the more freeways and highways around a pregnant woman's home, the higher the likelihood of her baby being born prematurely. "The most ...

This press release is available in German. Green power is an unstable commodity. Photovoltaic plants rest at night, and wind turbines stand still when there are lulls in the wind. This is why in the future there will be a need for intermediate storage of considerable amounts of environmentally friendly power. One of the hot topics at the moment is the use of electric cars for intermediate power storage. Experts agree that this alone will not suffice. Instead, large-scale stationary storage facilities will be needed, substations centrally located in the grid and capable ...

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is widely recognized by the medical community, and there are a number of therapies in place. But as many as six percent of all children suffer from the less familiar Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Demonstrating a lack of refined motor skills, children with DCD tend to have a more difficult time playing sports and staying organized at school. They appear to be uncoordinated — and many parents think they'll grow out of it. But research shows that may not be true. Now Dr. Orit Bart and her colleagues at Tel Aviv ...

This press release is available in German. If electric vehicles are to become an alternative to traditional vehicles there is a lot of research and development work to be done. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft created the "System Research for Electromobility" project back in June 2009, an initiative involving a total of 33 Fraunhofer Institutes. The research is financed with € 34.4 million in funding from the federal economic stimulus program II from the German federal ministry of education and research (BMBF). In addition, the federal economic stimulus program I provided ...

Research from North Carolina State University shows that they really don't make women like they used to, at least in Spain. The study, which examined hundreds of Spanish and Portuguese skulls spanning four centuries, shows that differences in the craniofacial features of men and women have become less pronounced. "Improving our understanding of the craniofacial features of regional groups can help us learn more from skeletal remains, or even help us identify an individual based on his or her remains," says Dr. Ann Ross, an associate professor of anthropology at NC State ...