The issue of extending marriage to lesbians and gays has ignited recurring controversy across the U.S. over the past decade. As some state legislatures enact civil union laws and courts extend rights based on same-sex couples' rights to equal protection, activist groups promote constitutional amendments opposing any redefinition of marriage and mount campaigns to defeat individual so-called "activist" judges. A recent Texas case weighs in on an important and interesting issue: can Texas couples who obtained legal recognition of their relationship in other states pursue ...

What you do after a motorcycle accident can have a significant impact on your ability to maximize the compensation you receive for your injuries. Motorcycle accident attorneys understand how specific actions can help or hurt, jury verdicts and insurance claim settlements. What You Should do to Protect your Interests after a Motorcycle Accident The two most important to do when you sustain a motorcycle accident injury are seek medical attention and do not talk to the representative of any insurance company. Once you have received medical treatment, contact an attorney ...

Redspottedhanky.com is encouraging customers to book train tickets ahead of time in order to prevent them paying more than they need now that many fares have been increased. Train travellers across the UK booking tickets for the New Year will be faced with higher fares, with an average increase of 5.8 per cent for journeys made from January 2011. Analysis by redspottedhanky.com shows that despite an average increase, train companies have not raised their cheapest fares, giving train travellers the opportunity to save money by booking train tickets in advance. "Train ...

Rezidor's Sama Terrazza in Muscat, Oman has announced an exciting schedule of themed evenings adding more allure to the city's only rooftop lounge. The hotel at the Park Inn Muscat was launched last November and has since been the place to be for the city's in-crowd. More emphasis has been placed on special offers and promotions at the Muscat hotel in order to draw in people over the weekdays as well. Sandeep Kamal, Executive Chef in charge of food and beverage at the hotel, said: "Sama Terrazza fared very well last year since its opening; in fact we were overwhelmed ...

The 7th Annual Artivist Film Festival will take place in New York City beginning Thursday December 9th with a showing of the highly charged, already sold out film "Madonna of the Mills" and will conclude on Sunday December 12th with the film, "Deep Green" which focuses on how we can realistically stop global warming. All screenings will take place at the Tribeca Cinemas in lower Manhattan and features FREE tickets to all films, informational panels with filmmakers and subject matter experts after many of the films, and in the spirit of Artivist, a special reception ...

An unusual grandmother recently received an appropriately out-of-the-ordinary gift from her daughters. Pat Capps, 70, will be driving a Lamborghini through the Texas countryside, courtesy of DFW Drive Your Dream Tour. Capps was watching Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman race Mustangs in the movie "The Bucket List" when she mentioned to one of her daughters that driving a Lamborghini was on her personal bucket list. Capps is not your stereotypical granny, driving 45 mph down the freeway in her family sedan with her blinker on. She currently drives a Ford Mustang and ...

The Software Association of Hong Kong and 1st Hong Kong International Software Contest Committee have made the decision to reschedule the Awards Ceremony of 1st Hong Kong International Software Contest, which was to be held on January 11th, 2011 in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China, to March 11th, 2011. More than 50,000 softwares have been submitted from home and abroad since the software contest started 3 months ago, which demonstrates the influence of this contest on the international software industry. The committee has increased the daily work to examine carefully the ...

David Saunders, an active member of the CSA 2010 Task Force and CEO of Compliance Safety Systems, announces to the transportation industry his solution regarding the new CSA 2010 mandates. In a recent interview, David shares, "Driver fitness and accountability will correct itself over the next 18 to 24 months with Electronic On Board Recorders, driver health and wellness programs and more stringent physical qualification processes, but an engine will always leak oil, a tire wear down, and a light burn out, so no technology will ever correct that." He continues with, ...

For the person who has it all, give them an experience that will last a lifetime...The Gift of Italy. The Eat, Pray, Love Getaway guarantees an exclusive experience filled with wonderful memories as you EAT the gastronomic delights of the Tuscan region, PRAY you find the perfect handbag and LOVE every minute of it. Girls Fun Under the Tuscan Sun is a trip planning service that exclusively designs upscale itineraries to Tuscany, Italy for women looking to get away for a little female bonding. Behind this unique business venture are two ladies who stayed spent two weeks ...

The election of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president of the United States was the spark that lit the fire known as the "American Civil War." Many historians today consider the period of 1860 to 1865 as the most profoundly important era in the country's history. When the "union" split and came together as a "nation," the impact was felt across the globe then and defines who we are as a country to this day. To honor this most sacred 'event,' SevenScoreandTenYearsAgo journeys back to the mid-19th Century with its team of historical journalists and commentators, providing ...

In a straightforward decision, a Federal Appeals Court has upheld a preliminary injunction against the FDA to stop the seizure of the electronic cigarette as it enters the country to suppliers that retail them to the smoking public. The electronic cigarette or e cigarette as it is called by its users has found a home among smokers who have been looking for a smarter alternative in the tobacco market. The following is now so strong that e cigarette cafe's are popping up in major cities around the U.S. This group of "vapers" are a loyal group that have lobbied lawmakers, ...

Little did Rich Tola know exactly one year ago today he would premiere a film, start a foundation to help women and children of domestic violence, make a video encyclopedia of yoga poses throughout the streets of Hollywood, and release Rich Tola's 15 Minute Fat Burning Workouts (www.RichTola.com). And if you ask Tola, he'll tell you that his fat burning workouts are fit for a King. Or a Queen. Or anyone else in the world, for that matter. "Anyone can do them. Whether you're in shape or 50 pounds overweight," states Tola. "Each 15 minute full body workout is filled with ...

Bid Bullion releases its limited edition silver bullion to commemorate Max Keiser and his efforts in increasing the prices of silver. BidBullion.com, a new penny auction selling precious metals at pennies on the dollar, has released a limited edition silver bullion by the name of the Silver Keiser. This move couldn't have been made at a better time. On November 11th, 2010, Max Keiser, a finance critic and former stockbroker, told the listeners of the Alex Jones show that they should start "Google Bombing" the term "Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver" to increase the rankings ...

Given their outstanding mechanical and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes are attractive building blocks for next-generation nanoelectromechanical devices, including high-performance sensors, logic devices, and memory elements. However, manufacturing challenges associated with creating well-ordered arrays of individual carbon nanotubes and the nanotube-devices' prevalent failure modes have prevented any large-scale commercial use. Now, researchers at Northwestern University, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, ...

The ability to tolerate aggression is partly genetic, UCLA life scientists report in the first study to demonstrate a genetic component to a social network trait in a non-human population. "The ability to tolerate aggression is passed on across generations; there is genetic variation in the ability to tolerate aggression," said the study co-author Daniel T. Blumstein, professor and chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA. Blumstein, a leader in the field of applying social network statistics to animals, and his colleagues studied four groups of yellow-bellied ...

The use of tobacco cessation medication in a population may lead to reduced hospital admissions for heart attacks and for coronary atherosclerosis within the two years after use according to a study by Thomas Land and colleagues from the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, USA, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The study found no reduction in hospitalizations for other diseases, in the same two year period. In July 2006, the Massachusetts Medicaid program (MassHealth) adopted ...

Second-hand smoke increases risk of invasive meningococcal disease in children Children exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to get invasive meningococcal disease than children who are not exposed, reports a study from Chien-Chang Lee at the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, USA) and colleagues published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The authors also found a possible association of second-hand smoke exposure with invasive pneumococcal disease and Haemophilus influenzae type b. By reviewing and analysing published studies (30 case-control and 12 cross-sectional ...

Among smokers with military-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), integrating smoking cessation treatment with mental health care for PTSD resulted in higher rates of prolonged smoking abstinence, compared to referral for assistance with quitting smoking, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. Nicotine dependence is more common among individuals with mental illness. "Posttraumatic stress disorder, a prevalent mental disorder, is highly associated with smoking (45 percent) and unsuccessful quit attempts. Individuals with PTSD smoke more heavily than ...

With the use of a highly sensitive test, detection of the blood biomarker cardiac troponin T, a cardiac-specific protein, is associated with structural heart disease and an increased risk of all-cause death, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is a preferred biomarker for the diagnosis of heart attack, and increasingly it has been recognized that elevated troponin levels may be detected in several chronic disease states, including coronary artery disease (CAD), heart failure, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Some research has ...

Use of low-dose aspirin prior to a newer type of fecal occult blood test is associated with a higher sensitivity for detecting advanced colorectal tumors, compared to no aspirin use, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. "Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) and its precursors by fecal occult blood tests (FOBTs), which has been shown to reduce CRC incidence and mortality in randomized trials, is widely recommended and applied in an increasing number of countries. Screening is mostly done in age groups in which use of low-dose aspirin for primary or secondary ...

DALLAS – Dec. 7, 2010 – A more sensitive version of a blood test typically used to confirm that someone is having a heart attack could indicate whether a seemingly healthy, middle-aged person has unrecognized heart disease and an increased risk of dying, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. In a study available online and in the Dec. 8 print issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that a new, highly sensitive test for a protein called cardiac troponin T (cTnT) could detect the protein in about 25 percent of blood ...

LA JOLLA, CA-Better known as the light sensor that sets the body's biological clock, melanopsin also plays an important role in vision: Via its messengers-so-called melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells, or mRGCs-it forwards information about the brightness of incoming light directly to conventional visual centers in the brain, reports an international collaboration of scientists in this week's issue of PLoS Biology. The findings reveal a new role for mRGCs during image-forming vision and suggest that these cells could make a significant contribution to assessing ...

Patients who need assistance to breathe through mechanical ventilation may benefit from listening to music, a new review published in The Cochrane Library shows. The researchers found that music listening may relax patients, potentially resulting in fewer complications. Mechanical ventilation often causes major distress and anxiety in patients. The sensation of breathlessness, frequent suctioning, inability to talk, uncertainty regarding surroundings or condition, discomfort, isolation from others, and fear all contribute to high levels of anxiety. Medications administered ...

Immunotherapy given as pills or drops under the tongue is a safe and effective way to treat hayfever-like allergies caused by pollen and dust mites, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The researchers say the approach is an attractive alternative to immunotherapy injections in children. Common treatments for hayfever-like symptoms caused by allergies include antihistamines and nasal corticosteroids. If these prove unsuccessful, doctors may recommend immunotherapy, a desensitisation approach that involves exposing patients to increasing doses of an allergen. ...

Vitamin A supplements are still an effective way to reduce childhood death and disease. A new study by Cochrane researchers strongly endorses the continuation of vitamin A supplementation programmes, which reduce the incidence of measles and diarrhoea and ultimately save lives. Vitamin A deficiency is a common problem in low and middle income countries. People whose diets do not include enough of the vitamin may have impaired body functions, and be more susceptible to blindness, infection and early death. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends vitamin A supplements ...