Bat Blue Corporation, a provider of end-to-end network and security technologies and services, today announced that it has been named East Region 2010 NextWave Platinum Partner of the Year by Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks' next-generation high-performance firewalls enable unprecedented visibility and granular policy control of applications and content, at up to 10 Gbps. With over 2,200 enterprise clients, Palo Alto Networks has enjoyed consistently high annual growth rates since it first began shipping product in 2007. Bat Blue has been a Palo Alto Networks ...

Plonk Wine Merchants, an Internet-based wine retailer that specializes in selling top-notch, small-production, and obscure wines from around the globe all under $30 per bottle, just announced the launch of its cutting-edge wine club. In addition to shipping wine to its members on a monthly basis, the Plonk Wine Club will feature a series of interactive online wine tastings led by an arsenal of acclaimed winemakers from around the world via live video broadcast. For $89.99 per month, Plonk Wine Club members will receive: - 4 wines per month: 1 bottle of the Plonk ...

The proportion of adult smokers dramatically decreased during the past three decades in at least one metropolitan area — with more quitting and fewer picking up the habit, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. The Minnesota Heart Survey, a population-based, serial cross-sectional study of trends in cardiovascular risk factors, included between 3,000 and 6,000 participants in each of its six surveys. Examining the smoking trends in adults 25 to 74 years old in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area from 1980 ...

Eating smaller amounts of salt each day as a teenager could reduce high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke in adulthood, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Conducting a sophisticated computer modeling analysis, researchers projected the nationwide health effects of a 3-gram reduction in dietary salt from processed foods consumed by adolescent boys and girls. Teenagers eat more salt each day — more than 9 grams (3,800 milligrams of sodium) — than any other age group, researchers said. The American Heart ...

Light to moderate alcohol consumption (about two to three drinks daily) among male coronary artery bypass patients was associated with 25 percent fewer subsequent cardiovascular procedures, heart attacks, strokes and death compared to non-drinkers, in a study presented at the American Heart's Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. However, bypass patients with left ventricular dysfunction who were moderate to heavy drinkers (more than six drinks daily) were twice as likely to have subsequent cardiovascular deaths compared to non-drinkers. "The benefit of light amounts ...

The death of a spouse or child can cause elevated heart rate and other potentially harmful heart rhythm changes among the recently bereaved, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. These changes in how the heart functions — which could increase the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death — tend to revert back to normal ranges within six months, researchers said. "While the focus at the time of bereavement is naturally directed toward the deceased person, the health and welfare of bereaved survivors should ...

While vitamin D deficiency is associated with fatal stroke among whites, it is not linked to more stroke deaths among blacks, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Analyzing the health records of a nationally representative group of 7,981 black and white adults, researchers found that whites with deficient vitamin D levels had a doubled risk of dying from a stroke compared to whites with higher vitamin D levels. In contrast, researchers found no relationship between fatal strokes and vitamin D deficiency among blacks, ...

Women who report having high job strain have a 40 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and the need for procedures to open blocked arteries, compared to those with low job strain, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. In addition, job insecurity – fear of losing one's job – was associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure, increased cholesterol and excess body weight. However, it'snot directly associated with heart attacks, stroke, invasive ...

A protocol that uses continuous real-time radiation monitoring, low-dose imaging programs and requires physician awareness of radiation dose, significantly reduced radiation exposure during electrophysiology procedures and catheter ablations to diagnose and treat heart arrhythmias in children, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Invasive cardiac electrophysiology is used to diagnose and treat abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, which can range from the benign to the life-threatening. In the study, researchers ...

9:30 a.m. Abstract 14027/P2049 – Cholesterol deposits on eyelids predict higher risk of heart attack, artery disease and death Cholesterol deposits on eyelids, "xanthelasmata," predict risk for heart attack, artery disease and early death, a Danish study found. Because half of the people with the deposits have normal blood cholesterol levels, scientists said the lesions may be an important independent marker of underlying artery disease. Copenhagen researchers established the presence or absence of xanthelasmata at baseline in 12,939 people. Of these, 1,903 developed ...

San Diego - How do you know what to listen to? In the middle of a noisy party, how does a mother suddenly focus on a child's cry, even if it isn't her own? Bridget Queenan, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center is turning to mustached bats to help her solve this puzzle. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, Queenan will report that she has found neurons in the brains of bats that seem to "shush" other neurons when relevant communications sounds come in – a process she suggests may be working in ...

San Diego - Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center can now show, using functional MRI images, why it is that behavior in children and young adolescents veers toward the egocentric rather than the introspective. In findings being presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego on November 14, the researchers say that the five scattered regions in the brain that make up the default-mode network (DMN) have not started working in concert in youngsters aged six to nine. These areas light up in an fMRI scan, but not simultaneously. The ...

San Diego - A brain scan with functional MRI (fMRI) is enough to predict which patients with pediatric anxiety disorder will respond to "talk therapy," and so may not need to use psychiatric medication, say neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center. Their study, being presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, showed that children and adolescents, ages 8 to16, who show fear when looking at happy faces on a screen inside an fMRI scanner were those who had least success with an eight-week course of cognitive behavioral ...

A study led by researchers in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine shows unexpected and extensive natural recovery after spinal cord injury in primates. The findings, to be published November 14 in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience, may one day lead to the development of new treatments for patients with spinal cord injuries. While regeneration after severe brain and spinal cord injury is limited, milder injuries are often followed by good functional recovery. To investigate how this occurs, UC San ...

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh researchers have created a nanoscale light sensor that can be combined with near-atomic-size electronic circuitry to produce hybrid optic and electronic devices with new functionality. The team, which also involved researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reports in Nature Photonics that the development overcomes one of nanotechnology's most daunting challenges. The group, led by Jeremy Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, fashioned a photonic device less than 4 nanometers ...

Low levels of vitamin D, the essential nutrient obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, doubles the risk of stroke in whites, but not in blacks, according to a new report by researchers at Johns Hopkins. Stroke is the nation's third leading cause of death, killing more than 140,000 Americans annually and temporarily or permanently disabling over half a million when there is a loss of blood flow to the brain. Researchers say their findings, to be presented Nov. 15 at the American Heart Association's (AHA) annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago, back ...

OTTAWA – November 14, 2010 – One of the largest, most extensive worldwide investigations into heart failure, led by the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI), conclusively proves that a new therapeutic implant synchronizes and strengthens a fading heart beat while reducing risk of death by 24% compared to the current treatment. The research, co-led by Dr. Anthony Tang and Dr. George Wells at the Heart Institute, brings the promise of life-saving treatment for patients with symptoms of mild to moderate heart failure – an increasingly common condition among an aging ...

In today's world of sophisticated organisms proteins are the stars. They are the indispensible catalytic workhorses, carrying out the processes essential to life. But long, long ago ribonucleic acid (RNA) reigned supreme. Now Northwestern University researchers have produced an atomic picture that shows how two of these very old molecules interact with each other. It is a rare glimpse of the transition from an ancient, RNA-based world to our present, protein-catalyst dominated world. The scientists are the first to show the atomic details of how ribonuclease P (RNase ...

Scientists studying genetic data from nearly 50,000 people have uncovered several DNA sequence variations associated with the electrical impulses that make the heart beat. The findings, reported in Nature Genetics, may pave the way for a greater understanding of the mechanisms for abnormal heart rhythms and sudden cardiac death. "Regulation of the heart's rhythm is exceedingly complex," says co-author Glenn I. Fishman, MD, the William Goldring Professor of Medicine and the director of the Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology at NYU Langone Medical Center. "This study ...

People who sleep poorly or do not get enough sleep have higher levels of inflammation, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke, researchers have found. Data from a recent study are scheduled to be presented Sunday, Nov. 14 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago by Alanna Morris, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University School of Medicine. The results come from surveying 525 middle-aged people participating in the Morehouse-Emory Partnership to Eliminate Cardiovascular Health Disparities (META-Health) study on their sleep quality and sleep ...

Approximately 500,000 Americans require dialysis to treat kidney disease; of that population nearly half of the deaths that occur are caused by cardiovascular disease. Dialysis patients are at elevated risk for sudden cardiac death, but physicians are unclear why these deaths occur because little research has been done to examine how to best manage heart disease in this high-risk population. Northwestern Medicine cardiologist Rod Passman, MD, medical director for the Center for Atrial Fibrillation at the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute of Northwestern Memorial Hospital ...

The twisting, ladder-like form of the DNA molecule—the architectural floor plan of life—contains a universe of information critical to human health. Enormous effort has been invested in deciphering the genetic code, including, most famously, the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, the process of reading some three-billion nucleotide "letters" to reveal an individual's full genome remains a costly and complex undertaking. Now biophysicist Stuart Lindsay, of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, has demonstrated a technique that may lead to rapid, low cost ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Pathogenic fungi have been found to protect themselves against unwanted genetic mutations during sexual reproduction, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. A gene-silencing pathway protects the fungal genome from mutations imposed by a partner during mating. This pathway was discovered in Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus that commonly infects humans, causing over one million cases of lung and brain infection each year, and more than 600,000 deaths. A related species, Cryptococcus gattii, is causing an expanding outbreak in the Pacific ...

Other study authors include Sarah Perman, MD, Douglas Smith, Marion Leary, RN, and Lance Becker, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, and Noah Swann and Dana Edelson, MD at the University of Chicago. CONTACT: At the AHA Scientific Sessions Jessica Mikulski C: 215-796-4829 Email: Jessica.mikulski@uphs.upenn.edu Following the Scientific Sessions Holly Auer O: 215-349-5659 C: 215-200-2313 Email: holly.auer@uphs.upenn.edu Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical ...

Established in 2009, http://www.sumokitchen.com is a popular and well designed recipe site for Japanese and Asian home cooked food. Started as a hobby by a Japanese girl living in Sydney, it has grown to close to 100 recipes and was featured in Foodies of the World - a book by Australian publishing house Slattery Media, released October 2010. New recipes appear weekly on http://www.sumokitchen.com, including traditional home-cooked fare tailored by Milo, the resident chef. Most popular Japanese recipes include the a super simple Teriyaki Chicken, healthy and delicious ...