Britain's leading online parcel delivery specialist Parcel2Go has reminded shoppers looking for great deals on their Christmas presents this year to remember to capitalise on Black Friday on November 25. The annual event, which marks the start of the Christmas shopping rush in America, is designed to inspire US consumers and get the tills ringing at the start of the festive season. But thanks to the internet, next week's shopping bonanza won't be restricted to people living in the United States. Amazon UK is one retailer that is joining in to bring British shoppers ...

Children who started eating fish before nine months of age are less likely to suffer from pre-school wheeze, but face a higher risk if they were treated with broad spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life or their mother took paracetamol during pregnancy. Those are the key findings from a large-scale Swedish study published in the December issue of Acta Paediatrica. Researchers analysed responses from 4,171 randomly selected families, who answered questions when their child was six months, 12 months and four-and-a-half years of age. "Recurrent wheeze is a very ...

Researchers at King's College London have discovered how one of the most common household painkillers works, which could pave the way for less harmful pain relief medications to be developed in the future. Paracetamol, often known in the US and Asia as acetaminophen, is a widely-used analgesic (painkiller) and the main ingredient in everyday medications such as cold and flu remedies. Although discovered in the 1890s and marketed as a painkiller since the 1950s, exactly how it relieves pain was unknown. This study, funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) ...

Amsterdam -- "Would legal regulation and control of drugs better protect children?" is a question posed by former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso in an editorial to be published in the January issue of Elsevier's International Journal of Drug Policy (IJDP). The editorial, "Children and drug law reform" follows the March 2011 report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, chaired by Cardoso, which made a series of recommendations for reforms of drug laws, including experiments with legal regulation and control. "If we believe that the best interests ...

Researchers have shown for the first time how Golden orb web spiders (Nephila antipodiana) add a chemical to their web silk to repel invading ants. The finding adds a chemical defense to the impressive properties of spider silk, already known to be very strong, elastic and adhesive, and may provide new opportunities for pesticide design. The study was led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the University of Melbourne, and is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B today [Wednesday, 23 November 2011]. Associate Professor ...

Ecological tourism has no effect on the presence of large mammals in the Amazon, according to a study that for the first time compares the biological diversity of ecotourism zones with that of protected areas. Furthermore, it can help to protect the biodiversity of areas that are not officially protected yet are vital in the ecological framework. Since the UN began to promote ecological tourism at the end of the 1980's as a way of protecting the environment without resorting to its economic exploitation, the debate as to whether ecotourism is really beneficial has remained ...

Boxer will include TV2 paid channel (in Danish the term is Tv2 betalingskanal) in all of the Boxer TV-packages to ensure subscribers continued access to the channel. "It's great that we have signed the first distribution agreement and that TV2 will remain available to Boxer's customers with aerial reception whether they're watching from their living room or in their summer home and whether the channel is part of a TV-package or purchased separately," says administrative director at TV2, Merete Eldrup. TV2 will be included in the TV packages Boxer MINI, ...

WASHINGTON -- Does tryptophan in turkey really cause the bleary-eyed daze after a Thanksgiving meal? What's inside those pop-up timers that announce the turkey is ready for the table? How can those timers pop up when the turkey reaches exactly the right internal temperature? For answers to those and other questions that could spark lively dinnertime conversation Thursday, check out two high-definition Bytesize Science videos that the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, is offering as an addition to the holiday menu. They are available ...

The Labor Department will be sharing information with nearly a dozen states, including New York's Attorney General, and the Internal Revenue Service in a push to crack down on businesses that cheat workers out of wages by misclassifying them as independent contractors. Wage and hour determinations vary greatly based on how a worker is characterized. By sharing information Labor officials will be able to target businesses that misclassify workers as independent contractors or non-employees to avoid paying the minimum wage and overtime pay. An employer can also avoid paying ...

Engineers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VirginiaTech) have developed a robot that mimics the graceful motions of jellyfish so precisely that it has been named Robojelly. Developed for the Office of Naval Research in 2009, this vehicle was designed to conduct ocean underwater surveillance, enabling it potentially to detect chemical spills, monitor the presence of ships and submarines, and observe the migration of schools of fish. Recently, a team at VirginiaTech has improved the performance of this silicone swimmer, enabling it to better overcome ...

The heart's valves, which guarantee the unidirectional flow of blood from one chamber to another, are asymmetrical. For example, the two flaps of the heart's mitral valve – which regulates blood flow between the left atrium and the left ventricle – vary in size by up to 70 percent. This arrangement, says fluid mechanicist Marija Vukicevic from the University of Trieste (now a researcher at Clemson University), naturally drives blood flow along the lateral wall of the ventricle; from there, blood takes a smooth turn creating a large vortex that redirects the blood toward ...

Fervent debates continue over how states should rehabilitate juveniles convicted of crimes. Some believe that exposing kids to the rigors of prison life will help them understand the gravity of their actions and prevent future juvenile crime. Others maintain that jailing kids does nothing to deter crime and only advances the likelihood that they will be criminals as adults. Further, they believe that children are more likely to be abused while in confinement. A new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation exemplifies these concerns. Entitled, "No Place for Kids: ...

Starting from the behavior of small flames in the laboratory, a team of researchers has gained new insights into the titanic forces that drive Type Ia supernova explosions. These stellar explosions are important tools for studying the evolution of the universe, so a better understanding of how they behave would help answer some of the fundamental questions in astronomy. Type Ia supernovae form when a white dwarf star – the left-over cinder of a star like our Sun – accumulates so much mass from a companion star that it reignites its collapsed stellar furnace and detonates, ...

Explosions of reactive gases and the associated rapid, uncontrolled release of large amounts of energy pose threats of immense destructive power to mining operations, fuel storage facilities, chemical processing plants, and many other industrial applications. To gain a better understanding of what's going on during these explosions, US Naval Research Laboratory research physicist Alexei Poludnenko, and Elaine Oran, senior scientist for reactive flow physics, teamed up with Sandia National Laboratories' Thomas Gardiner, principal member of technical staff, to study the ...

Research published in the European Journal of Epidemiology by Costanzo S, Di Castelnuovo de Gaetano G et al has sought to separate the effects of wine, beer or spirit drinking in relation to fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events. The Italian authors carried out an updated meta-analysis on the relationship between wine, beer or spirit consumption and cardiovascular outcomes, using state-of-the-art statistical techniques. From 16 studies, results confirmed a J-shaped relationship between wine intake and reduced vascular risk, with maximal protection — an average 31% ...

Dividing small businesses in divorce can be difficult, complex, and of course...contentious. This is usually because the business is the family's largest asset, and the parties may have very different views about what it is worth, as well as their respective shares. One party may believe that the business is failing, and is only a fraction of its perceived value, while the other party may insist that it is a budding enterprise that is worth much more than is being explained. These views can be especially difficult if only one party primarily owns or operates the business, ...

University of Central Florida researchers, for the first time, have used stem cells to grow neuromuscular junctions between human muscle cells and human spinal cord cells, the key connectors used by the brain to communicate and control muscles in the body. The success at UCF is a critical step in developing "human-on-a-chip" systems. The systems are models that recreate how organs or a series of organs function in the body. Their use could accelerate medical research and drug testing, potentially delivering life-saving breakthroughs much more quickly than the typical ...

Every year, dozens of West Virginia workers lose their lives at factories, construction sites, mines and other jobsites. However, the latest figures show that 2010 was the worst year in recent history for worker fatalities. A Dangerous Year for West Virginia Workers In 2010, worker fatalities in West Virginia more than doubled compared to 2009. A total of 41 West Virginians lost their lives in work-related incidents in 2009, while a startling 95 workers were killed in 2010. This increase forced a tragic loss on 54 more grief-stricken families, leaving them only the ...

Underride accidents, which occur when a car hits the back of a truck and slides underneath it, are among some of the deadliest accidents on America's roads. Studies show that 350 people around the country are killed each year from underrides -- and those who do survive sustain long-term, devastating injuries. According to a study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), these types of accidents may be prevented when rear impact guards are used on trucks -- which can save those in passenger vehicles because they prevent the car from sliding underneath ...

A new formula that can predict future health costs more accurately than previous models could help guide commissioning budgets for general practices under the government's new Health Bill, finds a study published on bmj.com today. The model (known as the 'person based resource allocation' or PBRA) was developed to help allocate resources for commissioning hospital care to all general practices in England, based on the health needs of each individual registered in each practice. A team of researchers led by The Nuffield Trust set out to develop a formula that was accurate ...

Grey seals have different types of personality that affect the extent to which they guard and care for their young, according to new research. Researchers from Durham University and the University of St Andrews, looking at seal colonies in Scotland, found that seal mothers are often unpredictable and adopt a wide variation of mothering styles when it comes to checking on their pups. Some are very attentive while others are not, the researchers found. The Durham-St Andrews study shows, for the first time, the extent of personality differences in marine mammals in the ...

In a new study published this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have pinpointed the cancer-fighting potential in the bat plant, or Tacca chantrieri. Susan Mooberry, Ph.D., leader of the Experimental Development Therapeutics Program at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center and a professor of pharmacology at the UT Health Science Center, has been working to isolate substances in the plant, looking for a plant-derived cancer drug with the potential of Taxol. Taxol, the first ...

Registration requirements and other restrictions placed on people convicted of sex crimes in Pennsylvania recently have been the subject of much debate in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Lawmakers are deciding whether to adopt provisions of the federal Adam Walsh Act that would tighten restrictions on sex offenders or to forgo federal funding in the form of law enforcement grants to avoid enacting federal rules that some believe would not serve Pennsylvania residents well. Supporters of the proposed sex-offender legislation say it would increase public safety and guarantee ...

New Rochelle, NY -- Bioengineering -- the application of engineering principles to understand and treat medical conditions -- is delivering innovative solutions for diagnosing and repairing damage to the brain caused by a traumatic injury. A broad sample of these new, cutting-edge techniques is presented in a special issue of Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com) The entire issue is available online at http:// www.liebertpub.com/neu The issue captures the broad scope of current and future diagnostic ...

The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) announced last month that nine manufacturers and distributors have initiated a voluntary recall of pourable gel fuels intended for use in outdoor firepots. The recall occurred after the CPSC received reports that at least 65 people suffered injuries when the fuel spontaneously combusted while they were pouring it into their firepots. So far, two people have died and 34 have been hospitalized with second- or third-degree burn injuries. Product Described as "Napalm-Like" The injuries occurred while consumers ...