When we suddenly get the answer to a riddle or understand the solution to a problem, we can practically feel the light bulb click on in our head. But what happens after the 'Aha!' moment? Why do the things we learn through sudden insight tend to stick in our memory? 'Much of memory research involves repetitive, rote learning,' says Kelly Ludmer, a research student in the group of Prof. Yadin Dudai of the Institute's Neurobiology Department, 'but in fact, we regularly absorb large blocks of information in the blink of an eye and remember things quite well from single events. ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University researchers have developed a set of propagation and production protocols that will help Indiana greenhouse growers bring a tropical plant into flower for spring sales. Roberto G. Lopez, an assistant professor of horticulture, and Arianna P. Torres, a doctoral student in agricultural economics and a former graduate student under Lopez, determined the optimal light intensity, temperature and photoperiod for Tecoma stans, a flowering shrub with yellow, trumpetlike flowers. Their findings, based on seeds and seedlings grown under varying ...

Jaclyn Nesheiwat Stapp, accomplished philanthropist, model, mentor, and spokesperson, kicks off the book tour for her first children's book, Wacky Jacky: The Story of An Unlikely Beauty Queen. Making appearances at multiple kid-friendly venues and book stores across the state, Jaclyn will participate in a live reading, book signing and princess-inspired "play time" over the coming months. By creating this book, she hopes to raise awareness of childhood bullying and teach children how they can look within to find the solution. Wacky Jacky is currently available on http://www.WackyJackyBooks.com ...

Ford Motor Company recognised its 47 top performing global partners of 2010 with the World Excellence Awards, the company's highest recognition for its suppliers across the globe. Global communications agency Imagination was among a group of only 15 who received the prestigious Gold Award this month, which recognises the very highest levels of quality, delivery and cost performance. "We made tremendous progress on the One Ford plan in 2010 and the partnership with our suppliers was absolutely critical in making that happen," said Alan Mulally, Ford president and ...

Do the principles of quantum mechanics apply to biological systems? Until now, says Prof. Ron Naaman of the Institute's Chemical Physics Department (Faculty of Chemistry), both biologists and physicists have considered quantum systems and biological molecules to be like apples and oranges. But research he conducted together with scientists in Germany, which appeared recently in Science, definitively shows that a biological molecule – DNA – can discern between quantum states known as spin. Quantum phenomena, it is generally agreed, take place in extremely tiny systems ...

Conservationists may need to change their approach to protecting animals and plants from extinction if they are to successfully shield key species and habitats from the effects of global climate change, according to a new review in the journal Science. Scientists and conservation organisations currently work out a species' extinction risk by determining how likely it is that climate change will make its habitat unsuitable. They then focus their efforts on protecting species whose location is threatened by changing temperature and rainfall. However, these are not always ...

Screening does not significantly reduce prostate cancer deaths, but the risk of overdetection and overtreatment is considerable, concludes a 20-year study published on bmj.com today. Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men worldwide. Screening is widely used in many countries, but remains controversial because experts can't agree whether the benefits outweigh the potential harms and costs of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of healthy men. Today's findings are based on a trial started in Sweden in 1987 involving 9,026 men aged 50-69 years identified ...

Bluegreen Corporation a leading provider of Colorful Places to Live and Play, today announced its resorts are the ideal place for guests attending the See the World in Branson events. Multiple Bluegreen resorts are convenient to this event, occurring this spring from April 1, 2011 to May 31, 2011. Visitors to the Branson area will love taking advantage of all these resorts have to offer, while also checking out the variety of events going on especially for See the World in Branson. Bluegreen offers numerous places to stay, close to all the action at See the World in ...

A taste of Disney magic is coming to Rapid City. Although Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck will remain in Orlando, Doug Lipp, former head of training at Disney's Corporate Headquarters, will help members of the local visitor industry discover Disney's secrets to customer service. Lipp will give a behind-the-scenes view of how the Walt Disney Company became a leader in customer service, sharing examples of Disney's successes and how they overcame customer service challenges. Attendees will leave the session with skills they can use to become leaders in their industry. "We ...

MONSTERS Unlimited announces their acclaimed family gaming app "MiX'Em" will be available as a free download in the iTunes App Store beginning April 1. The free promotion will run for a limited time before the app returns to regular price. "We wanted to give everyone - parents, kids and casual gamers - the chance to enjoy MiX'Em free of charge," said game designer Patrick Jebber. "Our goal is to get the game in the hands of as many families as possible, especially all the new iPad 2 and Verizon iPhone buyers who are just starting to explore the App Store." The MiX'Em ...

Paper or Plastic? That familiar grocery store question has once and for all be settled in Austin. Nationwide consumer markets are being tested for the expulsion of plastic bags from communities and the environment with some of the leading grocery and drug store chains eliminating the option for non-biodegradable containers. In addition to being a hazard to wildlife, plastic bags are made from petroleum, thus furthering our dependency on foreign oil. With an estimated one trillion plastic bags consumed worldwide, positive initiatives have to start somewhere, and the city ...

Aspectus PR, the leading business, energy and financial technology PR agency, today announced that it has been appointed by Milestone Group, adding to its strong financial technology practice. Milestone Group supplies highly-specialised software solutions for fund managers, custodians and life and pensions companies across Europe, the US and Australasia. The win underlines Aspectus PR's position as a leading provider of financial technology PR, and reflects its ongoing expansion in this market. "We look forward to kick-starting our global PR campaign with Aspectus PR," ...

Exposure to attractive, aggressive, female leads in films affects how men and women think about who women ought to be in the real world. Women in particular have high standards for other women, and expect them to be both stereotypically feminine and masculine i.e. beautiful and aggressive rather than beautiful and passive. That's according to new research by Laramie Taylor and Tiffany Setters, from the University of California, Davis in the US, published online in Springer's Sex Roles journal. Taylor and Setters' work looks at the impact of media representations of film ...

In recent years, bed bug infestations have become increasingly common in Swedish homes. There are two different species of bed bug that suck blood from humans – the common bed bug and the tropical bed bug. Increased foreign travel has meant that tropical bed bugs frequently accompany travellers to Sweden. A team of researchers from Lund University and Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall have now identified and quantified a type of smell that bed bugs produce, known as alarm pheromones. The researchers have studied these smells in both adult bed bugs and nymphs (immature ...

What is an individual voluntary agreement? An individual voluntary agreement or IVA is an agreement which helps people to evade bankruptcy in case they are experiencing difficulties while repaying an unsecured debt. In Scotland, this agreement is also known as protected trust deed. Individual voluntary arrangements can only be prepared by licensed insolvency practitioners who would forward your creditors a formal proposal regarding the payments. This proposal will be based on the detailed evaluation of your financial conditions and would usually outline regular monthly ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Internet security researchers at Indiana University and Microsoft Research have exploited software flaws in leading online stores that use third-party payment services PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout to receive products for free or at prices far below the advertised purchase price. The research group that included IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing Associate Professor XiaoFeng Wang and doctoral student Rui Wang, as the lead author, was able to receive electronics, DVDs, digital journal subscriptions, personal health care ...

Social Candy, Inc. announces its online subscription service, enabling companies to personalize their Facebook Fan Pages with video, graphics, custom content, integrated product catalogs and special "Fan Only" Promotions through a unique Facebook-Friendly template system. Its flexible architecture and easy-to-use interface allows businesses of all skill levels to customize Facebook Fan Page and improve their social media marketing campaigns. "We have listened to Facebook business users, and many of them don't have the technical and financial resources to embrace the ...

DURHAM, N.H. – In a paper to be published in the April 10, 2011, issue of The Astrophysical Journal, scientists on NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, including lead author Nathan Schwadron and others from the University of New Hampshire, isolate and resolve the mysterious "ribbon" of energy and particles the spacecraft discovered in the heliosphere – the huge bubble that surrounds our solar system and protects us from galactic cosmic rays. The finding, which overturns 40 years of theory, provides insight into the fundamental structure of the heliosphere, ...

Los Angeles-based Public Relations Professional Bobbi Cowan announces this week a new strategic social media collaboration with Arizona-based Kaboodle Ventures, LLC. The new alliance will provide clients with a full array of Organic SEO & Social Media made easy packages and solutions for everyone. From initial setup to ongoing Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube presence, distribute podcast feeds, promotional videos, press releases, audience development and event marketing across the Social Media landscape. Kaboodle Ventures currently reps, are a very impressive ...

A new discovery published in the April 2011 issue of Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) raises hope that new treatments for illnesses like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are on the horizon. That's because they've identified IL-23, a cytokine used by the immune system to ward off disease, as a major contributor to the inflammation that is the hallmark of these illnesses. With this information, it is now possible to develop new treatments that stop or reduce the damaging effects of IL-23, potentially bringing relief to millions of people with inflammatory ...

A two-year trial of entecavir followed by lamivudine (LAM) in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection resulted in a virologic rebound rate of 24% and 12% drug-resistance rate. Patients who continued on entecavir therapy throughout the study period had undetectable HBV DNA at the two-year endpoint. Details of this trial are published in the April issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 2 billion people worldwide ...

The Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school proudly introduces their new teacher Cotter Smith who teaches acting classes in New York at 154 Christopher St., New York, NY 10014. If you are located in New York and are looking for acting classes NYC then you have a great opportunity to be trained at the Beverly Hills Playhouse Acting School. The Beverly Hills Playhouse has four major locations: Beverly Hills - 254 S Robertson Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211 : (323) 657-5966 Los Angeles - Skylight Theatre, 1816 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027 : (323) 657-5966 New ...

In what could be a potential breakthrough in the battle against AIDS and a major development in the rational design of new drugs, scientists have engineered a new protein that prevents the virus from entering cells. This protein is based on a naturally occurring protein in the body that protects cells from viruses, except the man-made version does not cause inflammation and other side effects at the dosages needed to inhibit AIDS. This discovery was published in the April 2011 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). "This is science fiction made reality. ...

UPTON, NY — As part of the quest to form perfectly smooth single-molecule layers of materials for advanced energy, electronic, and medical devices, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that the molecules in thin films remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is molten. Thin molecular films have a range of applications extending from organic solar cells to biosensors, and understanding the fundamental aspects of these films could lead to improved devices. The study, which appears in the April 1, 2011, ...

PRIME is the only charity in the UK aimed at helping older people to set up their own business as a way of getting back to work. Established by Prince Charles as a sister charity to The Prince's Trust, PRIME helps the growing number of people in the 50+ age group who need to continue working, or get back into work after losing their job, by helping them to set up their own businesses. "Being a small charity, we don't have the resources to do everything we'd like to do," confirms Ian Stobie, Marketing and PR Manager for PRIME. "We have a huge amount of useful material on ...