Cambridge, Mass. – July 6, 2011 – By applying a coating to individual silicon nanowires, researchers at Harvard and Berkeley have significantly improved the materials' efficiency and sensitivity. The findings, published in the May 20, 2011, issue of Nano Letters, suggest that the coated wires hold promise for photodetectors and energy harvesting technologies like solar cells. Due to a large surface-to-volume ratio, nanowires typically suffer from a high surface recombination rate, meaning that photogenerated charges recombine rather than being collected at the terminals. ...

MadCap Software, Inc. (http://www.madcapsoftware.com), the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a showcase company for Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft XPS, today announced that MadCap Feedback Server 4.0 is now available. MadCap Feedback Server 4.0 (http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/feedback/overview.aspx#introduction) is a server-based feedback system for content development teams that provides Web 2.0 features--such as blog-style comments and topic rating--to capture readers' insights and opinions on content such as knowledge bases, online Help, ...

Top-performing hospitals are typically ones headed by a medical doctor rather than a manager. That is the finding from a new study of what makes a good hospital. The research, to be published in the elite journal Social Science and Medicine, is the first of its kind. Its conclusions run counter to a modern trend across the western world to put generally trained managers -- not those with a medical degree -- at the helm of hospitals. This trend has been questioned, particularly by the Darzi Report, which was commissioned by the U.K. National Health Service, but until ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- By mapping various genomes onto an X-Y axis, a team comprised mostly of Kansas State University researchers has found that Charles Darwin and a fruit fly -- among other organisms -- have a lot in common genetically. Their discovery, "Chromosome Size in Diploid Eukaryotic Species Centers on the Average Length with a Conserved Boundary," was recently published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. It details a project that compared 886 chromosomes in 68 random species of eukaryotes -- organisms whose cells contain a nucleus and are enclosed ...

The largest digital camera ever built for a space mission has been painstakingly mosaicked together from 106 separate electronic detectors. The resulting "billion-pixel array" will serve as the super-sensitive 'eye' of ESA's Galaxy-mapping Gaia mission. While the naked human eye can see several thousand stars on a clear night, Gaia will map a billion stars within our own Milky Way Galaxy and its neighbours over the course of its five-year mission from 2013, charting their brightness and spectral characteristics along with their three-dimensional positions and motions. In ...

An Ohio women and her husband recently settled a lawsuit against a Toledo area hospital for injuries suffered in a post-surgery fall soon after undergoing a knee arthroplasty procedure at said hospital. The fall led to an array of physical complications for the woman, who almost needed to amputate her leg to survive post-surgery complications stemming from the accident. According to the complaint filed in the Court of Common Pleas, Lucas County, Ohio, the patient was left unattended, out of her hospital bed, less than two hours after her reconstructive knee surgery; ...

WASHINGTON -- Commuting practices among airline pilots could potentially contribute to their fatigue, and because fatigue can reduce performance, pilots, airlines, and the Federal Aviation Administration should take steps to reduce the likelihood that commuting will pose a safety risk, says a new report from the National Research Council. However, there are currently too little data to determine the extent to which it poses a safety risk or whether commuting should be regulated. The FAA should support a study to gather data on how commuting practices are related to risk ...

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Newberry South Carolina Hotel offers a special Senior Discount for guests age 62 and older. The Senior Discount is available to qualifying guests with a valid ID or membership card to a retired person's organization. Seniors, and other guests, are sure to enjoy this Newberry SC Hotel's safe, comfortable and convenient atmosphere. Newberry is a charming city located approximately 40 miles north-west of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Newberry is conveniently situated near historic downtown ...

Male and female kittiwakes smell different from each other, according to research by Sarah Leclaire from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique at the Université Paul Sabatier in France and her team. Their work also suggests that the birds' body odors might signal the genetic makeup of individual birds, and could be used in mate choice to assess the genetic compatibility of potential partners. The study is published in the July issue of Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature. Birds protect their feathers by preening them with the secretions ...

When faced with threat, people who grew up poor are more likely to make risky financial choices in search of a quick windfall, according to new research from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, "The Influence of Mortality and Socioeconomic Status on Risk and Delayed Rewards: A Life History Approach" by Carlson School assistant professor of marketing Vladas Griskevicius found that people respond to feeling threatened differently depending on whether people grew up in relatively resource-scarce ...

By pairing an award-winning remote-detection version of NMR/MRI technology with a unique version of chromatography specifically designed for microfluidic chips, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have opened the door to a portable system for highly sensitive multi-dimensional chemical analysis that would be impractical if not impossible with conventional technologies. Alexander Pines, a faculty senior scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and the Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry ...

Atlanta SEO company Cardinal Web Solutions has published an original article on the Google +1 button, and its potential effect on search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. This most recent article is part of an ongoing effort by Cardinal Web Solutions to keep business owners informed on changes in the industry that could affect their Internet marketing campaigns. The +1 button, which Google has explained will be used to connect users with more relevant content, is viewed by the industry as Google's response to Facebook's "Like" button. The +1 ...

Spring is hailed as the season of rebirth, but if it comes too early, it can threaten the plants it is meant to welcome. A University of Alberta study shows that climate change over the past 70 years has pushed some of the province's native wildflowers and trees into earlier blooming times, making them more vulnerable to damaging frosts, and ultimately, threatening reproduction. U of A PhD candidate Elisabeth Beaubien and her supervisor, professor Andreas Hamann of the Department of Renewable Resources, studied the life cycle of central Alberta spring blooms, spanning ...

Bethesda, Md. (July 6, 2011) – A new animal study from Europe has drawn an association between pregnant mothers' sodium intake and their newborn's kidney development. Among the most significant aspects of the study's findings is that either too much or too little salt during pregnancy had an adverse effect on the prenatal development of the offspring's kidneys. The consequence of such disruption can lead to high blood pressure in later years. These are the conclusions reached in the study, "Both High and Low Maternal Salt Intake in Pregnancy Alters Kidney Development ...

An automatic and portable detector that takes just fifteen minutes to analyze a sample suspected of contamination with anthrax is being developed by US researchers. The technology amplifies any anthrax DNA present in the sample and can reveal the presence of just 40 microscopic cells of the deadly bacteria Bacillus anthracis. B. anthracis, commonly known as anthrax, is a potentially lethal microbe that might be used intentionally to infect victims through contamination of food and water supplies, aerosolized particles, or even dried powders, such as those used in bioterrorist ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 6, 2011—A policy specialist and a healthcare economist both say that the oft-quoted cost of $1.32 billion to bring a new drug to market does not hold up to close scrutiny, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). The researchers emphasize that available cost data cannot be trusted because the numbers are subject to numerous internal and external sources of variability, according to the July issue of GEN (http://www.genengnews.com/gen-articles/drug-r-d-costs-questioned/3707). "With heated discussions still taking place over healthcare ...

Holiday Inn Express Hotel Simpsonville provides a special rate for guests attending Miranda Lambert on July 16, 2011. The show will take place at 7:30pm in Charter Amphitheatre at Heritage Park. Special guests include Josh Kelley & Ashton Shepherd. Travelers attending any concert at Charter Amphitheatre can select the "Greenville Arena Discount" when booking at the Holiday Inn Express Simpsonville to receive a 10% discount. Some restrictions may apply. Miranda Lambert is an American country music singer who gained fame as a finalist on the 2003 season ...

Hackensack, NJ (June 29, 2011) – Researchers at the John Theurer Cancer Center recently published a study delineating the connection of social support to distress after stem cell transplants. Scott Rowley, M.D., Chief, Blood & Marrow Stem Cell Transplantation Program, the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center contributed to the study which was led by Larissa E. Labay from Mt. Sinai. The study was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, a peer-reviewed publication produced by the American Psychological Association. The ...

Los Angeles, CA (July 7th, 2011) - Six years on from the devastating 7/7 London bombings and in the wake of the inquest into the attacks, a special issue of the journal Memory Studies, published by SAGE, explores new research into our collective memories of this tragic event. "The London attacks make for a particularly compelling case study of contemporary remembrance and commemoration," say authors of the lead editorial, Matthew Allen and Annie Bryan. "Significantly, it would seem that a wider social project of remembering the bombings is at odds with the inquest's ...

Guoman's Charing Cross Hotel has announced the launch Eleanor's bar. The grand Charing Cross Hotel has undergone refurbishment to create a new look destination bar; Eleanor's, a sophisticated space designed to provide a luxurious oasis from the buzzing hub of The Strand and Trafalgar Square. The charming four-star hotel is literally situated at the very centre of London, making it the perfect location for meeting friends, enjoying a leisurely cocktail after work or pre-theatre drinks. The bar's beverage offering has also been revamped and Eleanor's tempting new menu ...

New Rochelle, NY, July, 6, 2011—Once broken, a compact fluorescent light bulb continuously releases mercury vapor into the air for weeks to months, and the total amount can exceed safe human exposure levels in a poorly ventilated room, according to study results reported in Environmental Engineering Science, a peer-reviewed online only journal published monthly by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ees The amount of liquid mercury (Hg) that leaches from a broken compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) is lower ...

The National Trust has revealed that members of the public will decide which flock of sheep will be bought by a working, commercial farm as part of the MyFarm* experiment which aims to re-connect people with the day-to-day realities of farming. Under the banner 'You choose the Ewes', subscribers signed up for the experiment will be asked to choose between buying 100 commercial or rare breed sheep**, to expand the current flock. They will be asked to consider the financial consequences, the implications for rare-breed bloodline and environmental impacts, as well as ...

Twitter allows millions of social media fans to comment in 140 characters or less on just about anything: an actor's outlandish behavior, an earthquake's tragic toll or the great taste of a grilled cheese sandwich. But by sifting through this busy flood of banter, is it possible to also track important public health trends? Two Johns Hopkins University computer scientists would respond with a one-word tweet: "Yes!" Mark Dredze and Michael J. Paul fed 2 billion public tweets posted between May 2009 and October 2010 into computers, then used software to filter out the ...

Aer Lingus has announced a massive seat sale across its entire network. The one million seat sale will see one million great value seats to the UK, Continental Europe and the USA, which went on sale at the start of July 2011. The sale will see one way fares starting from EUR19.99 on UK routes, EUR29.99 on European routes and from EUR219 each way to the USA, inclusive of taxes and charges. Aer Lingus director of communications, Declan Kearney said: "It's our 75th anniversary year and we're delighted to be giving something back to our loyal customers. We've ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.–While falls are a common cause of injury, particularly in older, hospitalized patients, some may not be as preventable as once thought. According to a new literature review published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS), many of the risks that frequently cause falls are not adequately addressed with the fall prevention initiatives used in healthcare facilities. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries to older people in the United States. Each year, more than 11 million people older than 65 years of age ...