The payoff for investing in public parks and recreation sites may be healthier, more physically fit residents and a less strained healthcare system, according to Penn State researchers. Investments in parks and recreational services have a dramatic effect on health and fitness, say Geof Godbey, professor emeritus of leisure studies, and Andrew Mowen, associate professor of recreation and parks management. "There is a strong relationship between how much money is spent to provide such services and the amount of physical activity that people take part in," said Godbey. ...

Heart disease is a silent killer, but new microchip technology from Rice University is expected to advance the art of diagnosis. During National Heart Health Month, Rice Professor John McDevitt will discuss the potential of this technology to detect cardiac disease early at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D.C., Feb. 17-21. Cardiac disease is the focus of one of six ongoing major clinical trials of Rice's programmable bio-nano-chips (PBNCs). PBNCs combine microfluidics, nanotechnology, advanced optics ...

"Man is but a worm" was the title of a famous caricature of Darwin's ideas in Victorian England. Now, 120 years later, a molecular analysis of mysterious marine creatures unexpectedly reveals our cousins as worms, indeed. An international team of researchers, including a neuroscientist from the University of Florida, has produced more evidence that people have a close evolutionary connection with tiny, flatworm-like organisms scientifically known as "Acoelomorphs." The research in the Thursday (Feb. 10) issue of Nature offers insights into brain development and human ...

In communities all across the US, travelers that went to the moon and back with the Apollo 14 mission are living out their quiet lives. The voyagers in question are not astronauts. They're "moon trees." The seeds that later became moon trees orbited the moon 34 times in the Apollo 14 command module. In this classic Apollo 14 image, taken just before the lunar module landed at Fra Mauro, Earth peeks over the edge of the moon. In communities all across the U.S., travelers that went to the moon and back with the Apollo 14 mission are living out their quiet lives. ...

Nairobi, Kenya (9 February 2011) Trees growing on farms will be essential to future development. As the number of trees in forests is declining every year, the number of trees on farms is increasing. Marking the launch of the International Year of Forest by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF9) in New York on 29 January, Dennis Garrity, the Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, highlighted the importance of mixing trees with agriculture, the practice known as agroforestry. "Over a billion hectares of agricultural land, almost half of the world's farmland, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, FEB. 10, 2011 -- Research presented today at the 31st Annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) ― The Pregnancy Meeting™ has found that three proteins known as XIAP, BID, and Bcl-2 are responsible in part for the success of progesterone treatments in the prevention of preterm labor. They may also play an important role in triggering normal labor. The proteins prevent preterm birth by hindering apoptosis – the normal, orderly death of cells -- in the fetal membranes. Stronger, thicker fetal membranes are less likely to rupture ...

SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in San Francisco, researchers will present findings that show that the use of the hormone 17-Hydroxyprogesterone does not reduce the rate of preterm delivery or neonatal complications in twins. The hormone 17-Hydroxyprogesterone is sometimes used to reduce the risk of preterm labor. In 2008, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine issued an opinion ...

SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in San Francisco, researchers will present findings that show that folate intake before and during pregnancy does not protect Norwegian women against spontaneous preterm delivery. "Sufficient folate intake has been studied as a possible protecting factor against spontaneous preterm delivery with conflicting results," said Verena Senpiel, M.D., one of the study's authors. "Preterm delivery is the major cause ...

SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in San Francisco, researchers will present findings that showed that in rats, the use of magnesium sulfate (Mg) significantly reduced the neonatal brain injury associated with maternal inflammation or maternal infection. Magnesium sulfate is sometimes used during preterm labor to reduce the risk of neonatal brain injury. In 2010 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal ...

If you thought that we know everything about how the flea jumps, think again. In 1967, Henry Bennet-Clark discovered that fleas store the energy needed to catapult themselves into the air in an elastic pad made of resilin. However, in the intervening years debate raged about exactly how fleas harness this explosive energy. Bennet-Clark and Miriam Rothschild came up with competing hypotheses, but neither had access to the high speed recording equipment that could resolve the problem. Turn the clock forward to Malcolm Burrows' Cambridge lab in 2010. 'We were always very puzzled ...

SAN FRANCISCO, FEB. 10, 2011 -- Research presented today at the 31st Annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) -- The Pregnancy Meeting™ has found that three proteins known as XIAP, BID, and Bcl-2 are responsible in part for the success of progesterone treatments in the prevention of preterm labor. They may also play an important role in triggering normal labor. The proteins prevent preterm birth by hindering apoptosis – the normal, orderly death of cells -- in the fetal membranes. Stronger, thicker fetal membranes are less likely to rupture ...

SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in San Francisco, researchers will present findings that show that when women administer their own patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) instead of getting a continuous epidural infusion (CEI) they used less analgesic, but reported similar levels of satisfaction. Women often receive a continuous epidural infusion of analgesic during labor. This can lead to prolonged labor and an increase in assisted vaginal ...

SAN FRANCISCO (February 10, 2011) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in San Francisco, researchers will present findings that show that by performing an amniotomy on first time mothers in situations when labor has to be induced, that delivery time can be shortened by more than 10 percent. There are many reasons that labor may need to be induced after a woman's due date. Today's study looked at whether or not performing an amniotomy early on in the labor process would shorten ...

Governmental agencies in the United Kingdom recently instituted guidelines banning physicians' white coats and the wearing of long-sleeved garments to decrease the transmission of bacteria within hospitals due to the belief that cuffs of long-sleeved shirts carry more bacteria. However, a new study published today in the Journal of Hospital Medicine shows that after an eight-hour day, there is no difference in contamination of long- and short-sleeved shirts, or on the skin at the wearers' wrists. A group of researchers from the University of Colorado, USA, decided to ...

A breakthrough by scientists at Queen's University Belfast could help reduce heart failure in cancer patients around the world, and ultimately increase survival rates. Scientists at Queen's Centre for Vision and Vascular Science have discovered the role of an enzyme which, when a patient receives chemotherapy, can cause life-threatening damage to the heart. This has, until now, restricted the amount of chemotherapy doses a patient can receive; but while protecting the heart, this dilutes the chemotherapy's effectiveness in destroying cancerous tumours. By identifying ...

The "glass ceiling" for women administrators in college athletics may be cracked, but is not completely broken, according to a new study co-authored by a North Carolina State University researcher. Results of the study, which surveyed athletic administrators at universities across the country to determine how, and if, gender roles made a difference in hiring practices, may disappoint those who think double standards for women have been relegated to the past. Dr. Heidi Grappendorf, assistant professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State, and colleagues ...

Maloof Skateboarding will host the final round of its Maloof High Ollie Challenge on February 14-15 in Las Vegas during MAGIC, the most influential event in the business of fashion. Pro Skaters Torey Pudwill, Corey Duffel, Johnny Layton, Levi Brown, Garrett Hill, Darren Harper and Steve Nesser will compete against 14 skaters who won regional contests at skate shops across the country, the winner of an online video contest, as well as top amateur skaters Luis Tolentino, Anthony Schultz, Kechaud Johnson, Austyn Gillette and Aldrin Garcia. The winner will take home $10,000 ...

The owner of Plagiarisma.Net noticed that most students could copy and paste any text coming from the Google books because they are not included in most of plagiarism tools available in the internet. This theft and copyright violation has been rampant because most software is not able to detect the copied text. "Well, it is high time that we push on adding more script to existing plagiarism checker tools and help students and other writers polish their talents by writing their articles and their thesis in their own words and understanding. We need to raise awareness about ...

A three-month EcoHearth.com investigation has revealed a developing environmental catastrophe that almost no one is paying attention to and which gravely threatens ecosystems worldwide. There are at minimum 2.5 million abandoned oil and gas wells, none permanently capped, littering the US, and an estimated 20-30 million globally. There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many--likely hundreds of thousands--are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally ...

When the 2011 Hurricane forecast was announced, the people in the gulf states were not too happy. The leading U.S. tarps supplier is trying to lessen the blow with preparedness. The tarps company has increased if poly tarps inventory by 20% and anticipates another re-stock of the high demand poly tarp cover. The natural disasters that are often associated with unusual weather changes are happening all too often these days. Families are left devastated as they lose their homes and sometimes their entire families to these tragic occurrences. Hurricanes cause oil spills ...

HIPAA Ready LLC announced today that it has been honored as a Top 50 Diversity Owned Business in Colorado by DiversityBusiness.com. This privileged distinction marks the third for the company in recent months following their placement as one of the Top 50 Privately Held Businesses in Denver and Top 500 Asian Owned Businesses in the U.S. For the past 10 years, DiversityBusiness.com has awarded its Top Diversity Businesses by highlighting top performing privately-held businesses with diverse staff, diverse ownership and progressive annual gross revenue. Shem Isukh, President ...

When President Obama signed the voluminous Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law last summer, there must have been an audible gulp from the pencil-pushers working at federal agencies. After all, they would be charged with the task of taking all 2,223 pages of the new law and administering it at the regulatory level. As those rule makers continue to churn out official releases on Dodd-Frank, it is up to the rest of us to keep track of the process, and to make sense of how those changes affect our work. Knowledge Mosaic Inc. was one of the ...

Of the top 10 commercials as ranked by Ad Bowl, http://adbowl.com/winner.php, the majority of advertisements in the Super Bowl have a strong emotional appeal. Kathy Doyle Thomas, Chairman of the Board for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a division of the National Retail Federation and Executive Vice President of Half Price Books, which is based in Dallas, Texas, said that doesn't surprise her. "The data has shown that winning a consumer's heart is still the best avenue for marketers to take," explained Doyle Thomas. "One of my personal favorites was ...

Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it seems Google is a diamond's best friend! New York and Israel based diamond jeweler Shiree Odiz will use the popular search-engine to find 20 world class Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts, offering the top applicant, to be named the "SEO Idol" a minimum of $10,000 dollars just for turning up to interview! ShireeOdiz.com are launching the largest ever SEO competition to keep pace with market leaders Tiffany & Co. and Blue Nile, who between them made over $450m dollars in online sales in 2009, according to their public financial ...

Life on Earth, came from other planets, and has a genetic ancestry leading backwards in time over 10 billion years - so proclaims a revolutionary, paradigm busting text, The Biological Big Bang, edited by famed astrobiologist and astrophysicist Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe. Chandra, along with his colleague astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, are the "fathers" of the field known today as "astrobiology." Hoyle coined the term "The Big Bang"; and Dr. Wickramasinghe and he coined the term "Astrobiology" in 1981, invented the science of astro-chemistry and have published major controversial ...