A diverse line-up of musicians and plenty of family entertainment lies in store at this year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Jamie Cullum has been appointed guest director for the event, which will take over the Gloucestershire town from Wednesday April 27th to Monday May 2nd. The jazz-pop pianist is an enthusiastic supporter of the festival and is due to perform live in Cheltenham on May 1st, although tickets for that show are already scarce. However, the programme includes plenty of other highlights for contemporary jazz fans, including several of Cullum's favourite ...

Sade's performance in Prague later this year is set to provide a real treat for fans of sophisticated R'n'B and laidback soul. The award-winning British band, named after lead vocalist Sade Adu, will return to the Czech capital for the first time in many years on Saturday May 14th. Having ended a prolonged hiatus with last year's critically acclaimed new album Soldier of Love, the group are heading back out on the road for a series of shows across Europe. Fans of Sade, who have built up a devoted base of followers since the release of their debut LP Diamond Life ...

Berlin, Germany, Saturday 02 April 2011: Promising new viral hepatitis data presented today at the International Liver CongressTM show that entry inhibitors --a new mechanism of action for drugs to treat viral hepatitis -- could provide the first new hepatitis B and hepatitis D treatments for many years.1,2 Most current approved therapies directly target viral replication (e.g. nucleotide/side analogues), and can lead to the development of viral resistance or viral rebound after the end of treatment. Entry inhibitors prevent the virus from entering the cell and forming ...

Groundbreaking data presented today demonstrates, for the first time, in vitro infection and replication of swine hepatitis E virus (HEV) in human hepatocytes.1 This study also verifies that HEV is a zoonosis (infectious disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans), which has been suggested for a long time. HEV is a major cause of epidemic and acute sporadic hepatitis in many developing countries. It is also endemic in many industrialized countries, including the United States, European countries and Japan. Four major genotypes (genotypes 1-4) of HEV have ...

The Theatre by the Lake is preparing to stage a new production of Bouncers, the acclaimed play by John Godber. People in the audience at the Keswick venue will be drawn into the world of Lucky Eric, Judd, Ralph and Les - the group of doormen who keep a watchful eye on proceedings at the Mr Cinders nightclub. The bouncers observe a number of colourful characters as they go about their business, with the action set against a backdrop of flashing disco lights and pulsating music. First staged in 1977, the drama is one of the West Yorkshire-born playwright's most enduringly ...

As part of the study, which will follow 40,000 UK households over a number of years, young people aged between 10 to 15 years have been asked how satisfied they are with their lives. The findings indicate that a mother's happiness in her partnership is more important to the child than the father's. The findings are based on a sample of 6,441 women, 5,384 men and 1,268 young people. Overall, 60 per cent of young people say they are 'completely satisfied' with their family situation but in families where the child's mother is unhappy in her partnership, only 55 per cent ...

Berlin, Germany, 02 April 2011: Highly exciting new data presented today at the International Liver CongressTM found Pegylated Interferon-lambda (PegIFN-lambda) shows superior virological response in HCV patients of genotypes 1-4, with improved safety and tolerability, compared to Pegylated Interferon-alpha (PegIFN-alpha-2a), the current standard of care in chronic HCV.1 The study results are so important because they show PegIFN-lambda could provide relief for the 20% of HCV patients who have to undergo dose reduction, or cease treatment, on PegIFN-alpha-2a – a part ...

The world's top female surfers will be heading to Sydney in the coming weeks to face off at the 2011 Commonwealth Bank Beachley Classic. Each of the Association of Surfing Professionals' (ASP's) top 17-ranked women will battle it out for a share of the AU$110,000 prize pot at the event. Among the stars set to compete are four-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore and up-and-coming world tour rookies Laura Enever and Tyler Wright. Gilmore is likely to start as one of the favourites, having taken last year's Beachley Classic title by beating fellow Australian Sally ...

Berlin, Germany, Saturday 02 April 2011: Exciting new data presented today at the International Liver CongressTM 2011 show that quadruple therapy in chronic hepatitis C (HCV) patients suppressed the emergence of resistant variants and resulted in a 100% rate of sustained virological response - undetectable HCV RNA - 12 weeks after treatment (SVR12).1 In the quadruple therapy study, HCV patients were given four drugs in combination; pegylated Interferon-alpha (PegIFN-alpha); ribavirin (RBV); and two different direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) BMS-650032 (an HCV NS3 protease ...

ORLANDO - A common genetic variation links to both bladder cancer risk and to the length of protective caps found on the ends of chromosomes, scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported today at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting. These endings or tips, called telomeres, guard against chromosomal damage and genomic instability that can lead to cancer and other diseases. "We found a single point of variation in the genome strongly associated with a 19 percent decrease in bladder cancer risk. The same variant also is linked to longer telomeres, ...

Sports fans will have the chance to put their beach soccer skills to the test in a tournament on the Gold Coast next month. The game may be relatively new to Australia but it has a huge following overseas, having first been played on the sandy stretches of Rio de Janeiro more than 30 years ago. Flamboyant former Manchester United and France star Eric Cantona's love of beach soccer has helped bring it to a global audience in over 170 countries, making it one of the world's fastest-growing sports. Youngsters and adults have been invited to enter their own teams in ...

As spring begins, it is time to start clearing your garden of all the unwanted winter mess which has piled up over the previous months. It's not just the garden either, as the rest of your home is probably due a traditional 'spring clean', so why not let leading tool and equipment hire specialists, HSS Hire help you out? HSS Hire, the award-winning tool and equipment hire company, has an extensive range of items to help with a wide range of indoor and outdoor tasks. From carpet cleaners to lawnmowers, ladders to drills, HSS Hire is on hand to help. Starting outdoors ...

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (ASO) will pay tribute to Miles Davis with two performances in the South Australia capital in May 2011. One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of many major developments in jazz, including bebop, hard bop and jazz fusion. His ensembles also helped to launch the careers of many other well-known artists such as JJ Johnson, Kai Winding and Gerry Mulligan. Davis's career spanned 50 years, during which he released seminal albums like First Miles, Kind of Blue and Someday My Prince Will Come. Acclaimed ...

Antidepressant use has been linked to thicker arteries, possibly contributing to the risk of heart disease and stroke, in a study of twin veterans. The data is being presented Tuesday, April 5 at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans. Depression can heighten the risk for heart disease, but the effect of antidepressant use revealed by the study is separate and independent from depression itself, says first author Amit Shah, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University School of Medicine. The data suggest that antidepressants may combine with depression ...

WHAT: A special media phone briefing with leading infectious disease scientists and healthcare-associated infection experts who will headline the 2011 Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America's (SHEA) Annual Meeting WHO: Arjun Srinivasan, MD, Associate Director of Healthcare-associated Infection Prevention Programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Steven Gordon, MD, President, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Makoto Jones, MD, Salt Lake City VA Healthcare System Dawn Terashita, MD, MPH, Los Angeles County Department of ...

Bingo Wonga will offer a new lotto results section which will feature all the latest UK Lotto draws including Lotto, Euro Millions, Thunderball, Plus 5, Daily Play and Hotpicks. The new section will also contain a history of results for each draw. Bingo Wonga was launched during May 2010 and in less than a year has become one of the most popular online bingo review sites. Unlike most other bingo review sites, Bingo Wonga only promote the very best UK bingo brands such as Sky Bingo, Sky Vegas and Virgin Bingo. Bingo Wonga also make available to their readers a large ...

Young adult patients with genetic heart diseases, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), substantially benefitted from therapeutic hypothermia, which could further extend the role for this treatment strategy in new patient populations, according to a scientific presentation at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, April 1-3. In patients with HCM, despite rapid cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with defibrillation, survival following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has been particularly unfavorable, explained the study authors. ...

The sickle cell trait could be a cause—albeit rare—of sudden death in young African-American competitive athletes, most commonly during football training, according to a scientific poster that will be presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions, April 1-3, in New Orleans. The sickle cell trait (SCT), which affects approximately 8 percent of African-Americans in the U.S., has been associated with sudden death in military recruits undergoing vigorous exercise. Due to the potential hypothesis that SCT may also cause sudden death in young highly ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Scientists have uncovered a genetic characteristic of metastatic prostate cancer that defines a rare sub-type of this disease. These findings are published in Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, which will debut at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6. Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, and colleagues identified an oncogenic gene fusion of KRAS, one of the most studied and ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Scientists at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute have identified a mutation in the DDR2 gene that may indicate which patients with squamous cell lung cancer will respond to dasatinib. The findings are published in Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, debuting here at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, from April 2-6. According to lead researcher Matthew Meyerson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, there are currently no targeted therapies for squamous cell lung cancer, ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A study published in Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, debuting here at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6, showed how evaluating the immune response in the tumor microenvironment may help researchers better target therapy in breast cancer. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, demonstrated that the level of macrophages and CD8+ T-cells, two key components of the human immune system, can help predict recurrence and overall survival. New biologic-targeted therapies ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Scientists have identified digoxin as a possible therapy for prostate cancer, using a combination of laboratory science and epidemiology that is unprecedented in its cooperative nature. "Epidemiologists and basic scientists often do not understand each other, as we often are only clear on our own strengths and the other's weaknesses," said Elizabeth Platz, Sc.D., M.P.H, professor of epidemiology and the Martin D. Abeloff, M.D., scholar in cancer prevention at Johns Hopkins University. For the current paper, published in Cancer Discovery, the newest ...

Dallas, TX (April 3, 2011) – A large, multi-year study of antibiotic use in Veterans Health Administration's acute care facilities demonstrates dramatically increased use of carbapenems, a powerful class of antibiotics, over the last five years. These drugs are often considered the last treatment option for severe infections with multi-drug resistant pathogens. The increased carbapenem use, which has also been described in non-VA facilities in the US, is alarming because carbapenem-resistant bacteria are becoming more common. Overuse of these drugs could weaken their efficacy, ...

A new way of understanding the structure of proteins, polymers, minerals, and engineered materials will be published in the May 2011 issue of the journal Nature Materials. The discovery by two Penn State University researchers is a new type of symmetry in the structure of materials, which the researchers say greatly expands the possibilities for discovering or designing materials with desired properties. The research is expected to have broad relevance in many development efforts involving physical, chemical, biological, or engineering disciplines including, for example, ...

Johns Hopkins scientists and their colleagues paired laboratory and epidemiologic data to find that men using the cardiac drug, digoxin, had a 24 percent lower risk for prostate cancer. The scientists say further research about the discovery may lead to use of the drug, or new ones that work the same way, to treat the cancer. Digoxin, made from the foxglove plant, has been used for centuries in folk medicine and for decades to treat congestive heart failure and heart rhythm abnormalities. It also emerged as a leading candidate among 3,000 drugs screened by the Johns ...