LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 18, 2011—Researchers have revealed a new single-stage method for recharging the hydrogen storage compound ammonia borane. The breakthrough makes hydrogen a more attractive fuel for vehicles and other transportation modes. In an article appearing today in Science magazine, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and University of Alabama researchers working within the U.S. Department of Energy's Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence describe a significant advance in hydrogen storage science. Hydrogen is in many ways an ideal fuel. ...

Canadians have one of the highest rates of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in the world with approximately 1,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Primarily striking in adulthood, physicians and researchers with the Canadian Pediatric Demyelinating Diseases Network (CPDDN), a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary group, have found that MS is being increasingly diagnosed in children. A study by the CPDDN published in the journal Neurology, identifies a particular gene involved in the immune response that puts certain children at a higher risk of developing MS. In children, an ...

STANFORD, Calif. — If a big bunch of your brain cells suddenly went rogue and decided to become fat cells, it could cloud your decision-making capacity a bit. Fortunately, early in an organism's development, cells make firm and more-or-less permanent decisions about whether they will live their lives as, say, skin cells, brain cells or, well, fat cells. Those decisions essentially boil down to which proteins, among all the possible candidates encoded in a cell's genes, the cell will tend to make under ordinary circumstances. But exactly how a cell chooses its default ...

Fish are not as dumb as people sometimes think: marine scientists have found that fish that are regularly hunted with spearguns are much more wary and keep their distance from fishers. In investigating the effects of marine areas closed to fishing by customary laws, an international team of researchers working in the Pacific found that fish exposed to speargun fishing take flight much earlier when a diver approaches compared with those living in protected zones. To assess the effectiveness of marine protected areas and their effects on fish behaviour, the team decided ...

Radiant Light, a new exhibition of paintings by Welsh artist Richard Corbett, is due to open at St David's Cathedral next month. Art lovers visiting Tenby and the surrounding area may by drawn in by the painter's work, which is inspired by the woodland and riverside scenes of Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire. A selection of Corbett's canvases and prints will be on show at the Cloisters Gallery in the cathedral from Tuesday April 12th to Monday April 25th. Entry is free and the venue will open to the public between 10:00 and 17:00 BST each day. Situated in St ...

The Transcendental Meditation® technique may be an effective approach to improve math and English academic achievement in low-performing students, according to a new study published in the journal Education. The study was conducted at a California public middle school with 189 students who were below proficiency level in English and math. Change in academic achievement was evaluated using the California Standards Tests (CST). "The results of the study provide support to a recent trend in education focusing on student mind/body development for academic achievement," ...

The event which has been running successfully for more than a decade is taking place on Sunday the 10th April 2011 at 10:00 a.m. start. The Cursa Bombers is a special race in which firemen run ten kilometres. Traditionally firemen form four men relay teams and run the course in sections of 2.5km while wearing 20kg of fire fighting equipment. The winners receive the coveted Fireman's team prize called the "Premio Especial al Bombero Equipado". The race is jointly organised by Nike Running and the city of Barcelona. However the race is also open to the general public. ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A long term study reports about the effectiveness of replacing bone marrow, purposely destroyed by chemotherapy, with autologous (self) stem cell rescue for people with aggressive forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). The study is published in the March 22, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. For the treatment, chemotherapy drugs are used to kill all of the patient's blood cells, including the immune cells that are believed to be attacking the body's own central nervous system. Bone marrow stem cells ...

Significant differences were observed between the overall survival curves for the two countries; compared with the Swiss curve, the Canadian curve showed a quicker drop at the early stages of burial and poorer survival associated with prolonged burial," writes Dr. Pascal Haegeli, Simon Fraser University, with coauthors. "Poorer survival probabilities in the Canadian sample were offset by significantly quicker extrication (median duration of burial 18 minutes v. 35 minutes in the Swiss sample)." The study, by researchers in Canada, Italy and Switzerland, was undertaken ...

Elderly patients prescribed combination angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) had a higher risk of kidney failure and death, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) . This study, by researchers from the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary, sought to determine the safety of combination therapy of ACE inhibitors and ARB in the clinical setting as some randomized trials indicate an increased risk of kidney failure. Randomized trials may over or underestimate the risk of ...

Hayseed Dixie will bring their unique blend of bluegrass and rock music to the Cotswolds on Tuesday April 26th. The American band, who emerged in 2001 with the release of their debut album A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC, have scheduled a performance at the Gloucester Guildhall. With several more LPs now under their belt, in addition to well-received performances at festivals such as Glastonbury and Download, the group have won plenty of admirers for their eccentric and tongue-in-cheek approach to making music. According to the official Hayseed Dixie website, the ...

Stanley Miller gained fame with his 1953 experiment showing the synthesis of organic compounds thought to be important in setting the origin of life in motion. Five years later, he produced samples from a similar experiment, shelved them and, as far as friends and colleagues know, never returned to them in his lifetime. More 50 years later, Jeffrey Bada, Miller's former student and a current Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego professor of marine chemistry, discovered the samples in Miller's laboratory material and made a discovery that represents a potential ...

Sydney's Musica Viva Festival (MVF) takes place next month, combining emerging talent from the Australian Youth Orchestra with some of the world's finest artists. They are set to come together at the New South Wales capital's Conservatorium of Music (CoM) for a series of collaborations that will be "bursting with energy and freshness", according to the organisers. The event consists of concerts, masterclasses and talks from the performers and other key guests. Highlights include a rendition of Graeme Koehne's Clarinet Quintet featuring Philip Arkinstall and the ...

In a study of 82 patients who were evaluated 12 or more years after undergoing laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding for morbid obesity, a majority of patients reported that they were satisfied with the procedure, although approximately 40 percent experienced major complications and nearly half required removal of their bands, according to a report posted online that will appear in the July print issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "There is substantial evidence that surgery is the only valid treatment for morbid obesity," the authors write ...

The incidence of melanoma appears higher in non-Hispanic white adolescent girls and young women living in higher socioeconomic neighborhoods than those living in lower socioeconomic areas, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the July print issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer and represents a substantial cause of productive years of life lost to cancer, especially when occurring in young persons," the authors write as background information in the study. "Among non-Hispanic ...

Although universal newborn hearing screening programs appear to identify children with hearing loss at a younger age, nearly one-third of pediatric cochlear implant recipients pass newborn screening only to be diagnosed later in infancy or early childhood, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "When universal newborn hearing screening programs (UNHS) were initially conceived, it was presumed that most hearing-impaired children, especially those without risk factors for progressive ...

Some of the best contemporary and classic Spanish language movies will be showcased at La Mirada Film Festival (LMFF) in Melbourne next month. The organisers have called on a host of famous names to act as guest curators, including Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, Pan's Labyrinth filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and Desperado star Antonio Banderas. LMFF 2011 runs from April 14th to 26th, kicking off with the Opening Night Gala at La Mirada Lounge, next door to ACMI Cinemas. Director Gustavo Taretto has been lined up to appear at the event. Guests will have the ...

Children with chronic inflammation of the middle ear can experience changes in their sense of taste, and these changes may be related to childhood obesity, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Chronic otitis media with effusion is a persistent inflammation of the middle ear, in which effusion fluid is retained in the middle ear cavity. "Otitis media with effusion (OME) is a disease with a high incidence in childhood and is a common cause of hearing disturbances in children," the ...

Patients with facial paralysis who underwent surgical treatment for a condition that leaves them unable to completely close their eyes reported improvement in comfort around the eyes and overall quality of life, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The inability to close the eye can be a devastating result of facial paralysis. "The resulting loss of corneal protection can lead to exposure keratitis [inflammation of the cornea], corneal ulceration, and potentially permanently vision loss," the ...

Ecologists have developed a better way of rearing bee larvae in the laboratory that could help discover why honey bee populations worldwide are declining. The technique, together with details of how statistics adapted from other areas of ecology can aid bee research, is published this week in the British Ecological Society's journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Human food security depends on bees because they pollinate so many of our crop plants. As a result, worldwide declines in both honey bee colonies and solitary bees are causing widespread concern. But faced ...

Over 10,000 people have attended the summit in previous years and the 2011 summit is expected to be the best yet. Anyone interested in attending the event must register for tickets at the Developer Summit website. Entrance will be denied in the absence of tickets. This year's event promises to be the most impressive yet with a packed schedule of 37 speakers including: Mark Miller (Chief Architect of IDE Tools division at Developer Express), Venkat Subramaniam (founder of Agile Developer, Inc.), and Tim Berglund. Alongside attending workshops and focused group sessions, ...

A new "templated growth" technique for fabricating nanoribbons of epitaxial graphene has produced structures just 15 to 40 nanometers wide that conduct current with almost no resistance. These structures could address the challenge of connecting graphene devices made with conventional architectures – and set the stage for a new generation of devices that take advantage of the quantum properties of electrons. "We can now make very narrow, conductive nanoribbons that have quantum ballistic properties," said Walt de Heer, a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia ...

A replica of HMB Endeavour, used by Captain James Cook for his epic 18th century world voyage, will call at Brisbane next month. The original vessel was sent to the South Seas by King George III in order to view planet Venus's transit across the sun in 1769. It was hoped this would enable astronomers to calculate the distance between the earth and the star. Cook was also given secret orders from the Admiralty to discover the rumoured "Great South Land". Although he was unable to do this, he charted New Zealand's north and south islands and also sailed the east coast ...

VIDEO: Mahadevan and Liang created an animated model to show how peripheral growth causes the developing petals to ruffle at the edges and curve outward, leading to blooming. Click here for more information. Cambridge, Mass. - March 21, 2011 - The "lily white" has inspired centuries' worth of rich poetry and art, but when it comes to the science of how and why those delicately curved petals burst from the bud, surprisingly little is known. Now, however, mathematics has ...

The food truck frenzy is sweeping Orange County! On Thursday, April 14, 2011, The Alzheimer's Association will be front and center of the rolling food craze when it hosts an incredible gourmet food truck event. With authentic, innovative cuisine rumbling into Irvine from all over Southern California, you can bet the Alzheimer' s Food Truck Block Party will be packed with hungry mobile gourmands chomping at the bit to try the latest meals on wheels from more than 20 of the most popular gourmet food trucks in Southern California. So work up an appetite and bring everyone ...