British Airways recently announced that it is to increase the number of scheduled flights it operates to Cancun in Mexico to three a week following its popularity with customers. Shortly after the inaugural British Airways flight to Cancun touched down in Mexico's most important tourist destination, chief finance officer Keith Williams told guests at a gala dinner to mark the occasion that customer demand had led the airline to increase flight frequency from twice to three-times a week starting from March 2011. The inaugural flight to the Mexican resort departed on ...

The Harley Medical Group is reporting a 35% surge in patients booking in for surgical procedures YOY as an early present for themselves, the month before Christmas. Many patients are taking extended Christmas holidays to ensure a full recovery is made before they return to work in the New Year. The most popular surgical procedures for Christmas 2010 include: Breast enlargement, Nose Reshaping, and Liposuction. Lisa Littlehales, Clinic Manager at The Harley Medical Group, said: "Surgery is a life changing decision that takes a lot of careful consideration, and financial ...

British Airways has taken up options for two new Embraer E-190 jets, one year after the first aircraft in the new fleet went into service, and is about to launch a new double daily flight to Stockholm from London City Airport. BA CityFlyer, the wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways, originally placed firm orders for six Embraer 170 and five Embraer 190SR efficiency jets, known as E-jets, with options on three further 98-seat Embraer 190s. They are now converting two of these options for delivery in Spring 2011. Peter Simpson, BA CityFlyer managing director, ...

National Trust is urging shoppers to forget those unwanted Christmas jumpers, socks or candles and think red squirrels and large blue butterflies this Christmas when searching for the perfect present for that difficult-to-buy-for family member or the friend that has everything. National Trust virtual gifts help to raise much needed cash for a wide range of conservation projects and could help solve the annual what-to-buy-for-Christmas headache. Money raised in previous years has helped to fund an important research project at Formby to help secure the survival future ...

Superbreak, weekend city break specialist, has announced the launch of its brand-new two-night 'Paris for Less' promotion to offer customers even more value for money on their short break. As another festive season approaches, the Yorkshire based tour operator has launched its brand-new two-night Paris for Less promotion to give customers more for less in Paris this winter. Customers can choose from one of six free sightseeing tickets on offer, with more expected to be added to the promotion over the next few weeks. With a choice of budget 3* to luxury 5* hotels spanning ...

As the Philadelphia area plunges into the busy holiday shopping season, Oxford Valley Mall encourages all residents to preserve their comfort and joy by using common sense and 10 safety tips to protect themselves and their valuables while shopping. In fact, it's wise to keep these tips in mind any time throughout the year that large numbers of people gather. Holiday Shopping Safety Tips 1. When parking, lock your car and take your keys with you. 2. Do not leave valuables in plain view in your car. Lock the valuables and all packages in the trunk. 3. When shopping ...

It is natural that all customers using the services of online pharmacies would like to get high quality medicines paying less for them and getting their order within the shortest possible time. That is why the emergence of www.rxbuys.com is very timely and well-taken. This site assures new and regular clients with wide range of products, faster service and guarantees of security. It uses the most updated methods to make every client feel protected from cheating and information pilfering. The ways of delivery and payment are various and can be chosen by the customer according ...

On July 18, 1975, Terence Mix appeared before an FDA advisory committee to testify about how Clomid (clomiphene citrate) posed a risk of birth defects to the human embryo. He had hoped at the time to draw public attention to the risk and to compel the drug's manufacturer to add a warning to its labeling. Little did he know that it would be another 35 years before his message would reach the general public. But on November 26, 2010, the journal, "Human Reproduction," published over the internet the results of a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ...

With almost 4,000 Facebook fans on their Facebook company page, Hacienda Tres Rios Resort in the Riviera Maya has launched an offer through the social network for their fans this holiday season. The Christmas present offered through the social network is a $100 USD gift card applied to customers when they call 1.800.494.9173 and mention the promotional code given in the Hacienda Tres Rios Facebook application. The user can use the Christmas credit on their reservation to the Riviera Maya all-inclusive resort. The landing page of the promotion allows the user to ...

Medical scientists at the University of Leicester have identified for the first time a new way in which our body controls the levels of sugar in our blood following a meal. They have discovered the part played by a particular protein in helping to maintain correct blood sugar levels. The breakthrough was made in the University of Leicester by a team led by Professor Andrew Tobin, Professor of Cell Biology, who is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. The research is published online ahead of print in the prestigious international scientific journal the Proceedings ...

Media coverage on HIV/AIDS has fallen by more than 70% in developed countries over the last 20 years, according to an international team of researchers. While in the early 1990s, an average of 1.5 articles linked to HIV/AIDS could be found in every issue of the main broadsheet newspapers, levels of coverage have dropped to below 0.5 articles per newspaper issue since 2008. Coverage in French and US-based newspapers has decreased particularly dramatically during this period. The findings are part of an ongoing study into sustainability-related media coverage worldwide ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (November 29, 2010) – Whitehead Institute researchers have shown in mouse models that overexpression of the microRNA 125b (miR-125b) can independently cause leukemia and accelerate the disease's progression. Their results are published in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "MicroRNAs are elevated in many cancers, but in humans and mice, can upregulation of a microRNA actually cause the cancer? That's the question," says Whitehead Institute Founding Member Harvey Lodish. "This 22 nucleotide RNA, one ...

The mystery of how an abundance of fossils have been marvellously preserved for nearly half a billion years in a remote region of Africa has been solved by a team of geologists from the University of Leicester's Department of Geology. They have established that an ancient wind brought life to the region – and was then instrumental in the preservation of the dead. Sarah Gabbott, Jan Zalasiewicz and colleagues investigated a site near the Table Mountains in South Africa. Their findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Geology. Sarah Gabbott said: "Near ...

The rate of global warming could lead to a rapid release of carbon from peatlands that would further accelerate global warming. Two recent studies published by the Mathematics Research Institute at the University of Exeter highlight the risk that this 'compost bomb' instability could pose, and calculate the conditions under which it could occur. The same Exeter team is now exploring a possible link between the theories described in the studies and last summer's devastating peatland fires in Russia. The first paper is published in the European Journal of Social Science ...

Measurements show that the sea's salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface. The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there. The results appear in a paper published on-line November 28th in the journal Nature Geoscience. In the research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), scientist Daniel Obrist and colleagues at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, and at Hebrew University ...

It is the hardest material in the world, and yet it can not only be used to cut other materials, but can be machined itself. Already over 600 years ago first diamonds were cut and the same technique is still used to transform precious stones into exquisite jewelry and later into unrivaled industrial tools. Dr. Lars Pastewka's and Prof. Michael Moseler's team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg/Germany can now reveal the secret of why it is that diamonds can be machined. The team published its findings in the current online issue of Nature ...

Paris, 29 November 2010 – Reduced male fertility may be making it even harder for couples to conceive and be contributing to low birth rates in many countries, reveals a new European Science Foundation (ESF) report launching today. More than 10% of couples worldwide are infertile, contributing to the growing demand for assisted reproduction techniques such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) for which Robert G. Edwards won the Nobel Prize in Medicine last month. Sperm counts have dropped significantly in the last 50 years in developed countries. Today, at least one in ...

For Immediate Release – November 29, 2010 (Toronto) – Neuroscientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have developed a protein peptide that may be a novel type of highly targeted treatment for depression with a low side-effect profile. Depression affects one in ten Canadians at some time in their lives and is a leading cause of disability worldwide. The study published in this month's Nature Medicine found that coupling between two dopamine receptors was significantly elevated in the brains of people who had been diagnosed with major depression. ...

The Department of Computer Engineering, Sejong University in Korea and ETH Zurich in Switzerland have recently introduced a novel and simple framework for rendering subsurface scattering on surfaces represented by points. This is useful for realistically rendering a cloud of points representing translucent materials such as the human skin. This significant study is reported in Vol. 53, No. 5 of SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences. The point-based graphics method for rendering surfaces has gained much attention as an alternative to polygon-based graphic methods because ...

The Great Tit is a common garden bird of many countries in Europe and Asia. Great Tits are generally thought of as fairly inquisitive but it has long been known individuals vary considerably in their willingness to explore new surroundings. Some birds – known as "fast" or "proactive" – are quick explorers and are comparatively aggressive, whereas "slow" or "reactive" birds are more cautious. The differences are at least in part genetically determined and as a result scientists in Holland, with whom the Vienna group has been collaborating closely, have been able to use ...

In a first-of-its-kind study to measure the impact of the highest recommended specialist staffing levels in an intensive care unit, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine found that increased staffing by specially trained physicians and other health care professionals can enhance patient survival and enable patients to breathe sooner without assistance. The results of the study have been released online ahead of print in the journal Critical Care Medicine. The researchers analyzed the files of patients in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) ...

Fires in homes and offices could be tackled more efficiently using technology that predicts how a blaze will spread. A new technique is able to feed data taken from sensors located in burning buildings into computer models so that rescue services can predict how fires will spread. The technology could save firefighters valuable time by giving several minutes of warning on how a fire will develop, helping them to contain the blaze and minimise its impact. Simple sensors – incorporated into smoke alarms, room temperature sensors or CCTV cameras – can measure the temperature ...

In an attempt to help children with autism learn the building blocks of creativity, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) tapped a toy box staple for help – legos. By building lego structures in new and unique ways, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) learned to use creativity, an important skill that they had seen as very challenging prior to the study. "In every day life we need to be able to respond to new situations," said Deborah A. Napolitano, Ph.D., BCBA-D., the study's principal investigator and assistant professor of Pediatrics ...

WASHINGTON — The number of people infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to far outstrip available resources for treatment by the end of the decade, forcing African nations to make difficult choices about how to allocate inadequate supplies of lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART), says a new report by the Institute of Medicine. It calls for a renewed emphasis on reducing the rate of new infections, promoting more efficient models of care, and encouraging shared responsibility between African nations and the U.S. for treatment and prevention efforts, ...

Playing online can mean more than killing time, thanks to a new game developed by a team of bioinformaticians at McGill University. Now, players can contribute in a fun way to genetic research. "There are some calculations that the human brain does more efficiently than any computer can, such as recognizing a face," explained lead researcher Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the School of Computer Science. "Recognizing and sorting the patterns in the human genetic code falls in that category. Our new online game enables players to have fun while contributing to genetic research ...