State Farm Agent Linda Allen takes her company's motto to heart. Like a good neighbor, Allen and her team collected and delivered donated supplies to weary firefighters in nearby Palo Pinto County. "There were numerous wildfires burning just west of my office," Allen said. "Many homes have been lost and property damaged. Firefighters were in desperate need of supplies." Allen and her team delivered over 1,200 bottles of water to the City of Hudson Oaks Volunteer Fire Department Thursday. The wildfire began Wednesday, April 13, near Possum Kingdom ...

Could veterans of war, rape victims and other people who have seen horrific crimes someday have the traumatic memories that haunt them weakened in their brains? In a new study, UCLA life scientists report a discovery that may make the reduction of such memories a reality. "I think we will be able to alter memories someday to reduce the trauma from our brains," said the study's senior author, David Glanzman, a UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology. The study appears in the April 27 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, a premier ...

WASHINGTON (EMBARGOED UNTIL 5 P.M. EST April 27, 2011) — By dividing individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) into four subtypes according to similarity of symptoms and reanalyzing existing genome-wide genetic data on these individuals vs. controls, researchers at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences have identified 18 novel and highly significant genetic markers for ASD. In addition, ten of the variants were associated with more than one ASD subtype, providing partial replication of these genetic markers. This study thus identifies ...

Valley-based electronics, also known as valleytronics, is one step closer to reality. Two researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have shown that the valley degree of freedom in graphene can be polarized through scattering off a line defect. Unlike previously proposed valley filters in graphene, which rely on confined structures that have proven hard to achieve experimentally, the present work is based on a naturally occurring line defect that has already been observed. The discovery was published in Physical Review Letters on March 28, 2011 and was also the ...

West Palm Beach, FL based technology marketing solutions innovator, U.S. Branding Group, LLC has introduced USB Insert - the first fully customizable print-to-web marketing solution for magazines and journals. "Our uniquely patented nano webkey technology is capable of being integrated in print that can be perfect bound, saddle stitched, dropped-in as an onsert, or even used as a belly wrap", said Managing Director, Rich Butler. "The user, intrigued by the device, is invited to simply detach and insert the custom die cut paper webkey into any PC or MAC ...

Researchers at Northwestern University have created a new kind of cloaking material that can render objects invisible in the terahertz range. Though this design can't translate into an invisibility cloak for the visible spectrum, it could have implications in diagnostics, security, and communication. The cloak, designed by Cheng Sun, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, uses microfabricated gradient-index materials to manipulate the reflection and refraction of light. Sun's results will ...

Avantium announces the successful start-up of its polyester pilot plant at the Chemelot site in Geleen, the Netherlands. The polyester plant is the first part of the pilot plant that Avantium is building at its new site to demonstrate its YXY technology for green materials and fuels. Avantium's monomer pilot plant is scheduled to become operational in the second half of 2011. The YXY polyester pilot plant will produce bioplastics based on Avantium's YXY technology. Avantium acquired the polyester pilot plant from Johnson Matthey in the United Kingdom, where the plant ...

A new chemical bonding process can add new functions to stainless steel and make it a more useful material for implanted biomedical devices. Developed by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Alberta and Canada's National Institute for Nanotechnology, this new process was developed to address some of the problems associated with the introduction of stainless steel into the human body. Implanted biomedical devices, such as cardiac stents, are implanted in over 2 million people every year, with the majority made from stainless steel. Stainless steel has many benefits ...

PHILADELPHIA— A Philadelphia botanist who has studied rare plants for 50 years, but has never attained the honor of having a plant named for him is finally getting his due, but with a barely visible organism so rare it may never be seen again. Dr. Alfred "Ernie" Schuyler, emeritus curator of botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences and a world expert on rare plants, recently was honored when a colleague discovered a new species of lichen and named it after him. The barely visible lichen (LIE kin), Vezdaea schuyleriana, is known to exist on a single boulder in rural ...

SoloHealth (www.solohealth.com), the leader in self-service healthcare technology, announced today growth statistics for the end of Q1 that include record-breaking product expansion and continued staff growth, as well as strong revenue increases. SoloHealth executives cite the emerging self-service consumer healthcare market as the primary driver for growth and rapid deployment of its consumer healthcare kiosks nationwide. "We are extremely bullish on SoloHealth's continued growth and success, especially with this continued rise in consumer's desire for self-service ...

One of the biggest problems with laptops - we are talking about nontechnical problems here - is that they get too dirty too soon. It is in their very nature to get dirty quickly, because they are supposed to be used on the move, and we do end up using them in strangest of places! Well, the poor laptop screens have to bear the brunt of it, and if they are not cleaned for a few days, they could be smudged beyond recognition. That is the reason people are always looking for methods on how to clean laptop screens, which help them to protect their expensive devices and help ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Bacterial infections really stink. And that could be the key to a fast diagnosis. Researchers have demonstrated a quick, simple method to identify infectious bacteria by smell using a low-cost array of printed pigments as a chemical sensor. Led by University of Illinois chemistry professor Ken Suslick, the team published its results in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Hospitals have used blood cultures as the standard for identifying blood-borne bacterial infections for more than a century. While there have been some improvements in automating ...

PHILADELPHIA — New psychology research at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates a correlation between a test-taker's motivation and performance on an IQ test and, more important, between that performance and a person's future success. Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, led the research, which involved two related studies. The first was a meta-analysis of previous research into the effect of incentives on IQ scores. For individuals who had above-average scores at baseline, motivation accounted for ...

Continuing in their commitment to provide outstanding customer service to their clients, SJD Accountancy were announced today as finalists in the UK Customer Experience Awards 2011, in the 'Professional Services and Research Agencies' category. Having won the Institute of Customer Service 'Customer Commitment award', back in March SJD Accountancy, the UK's largest accountants to Contractors with over 10,000 Limited Company clients, continue to put customer service and client management at the forefront of everything they do. The UK Customer Experience Awards, acknowledges ...

A specific form of vitamin E improved the most severe form of fatty liver disease in some children, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Results appear in the April 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. A previous study found vitamin E effective in some adults with the disease. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease among U.S. children. NAFLD ranges in severity from steatosis (fat in the liver without injury) to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH (fat, inflammation, and liver ...

Several years ago, Suparna Rajaram noticed a strange sort of contagion in a couple she was close to. One partner acquired dementia—and the other lost the nourishing pleasures of joint reminiscence. "When the other person cannot validate shared memories," said Rajaram, "they are both robbed of the past." From this observation came a keen and enduring interest in the social nature of memory, an area of scholarship occupied mostly by philosophers, sociologists, and historians—and notably unattended to until recently by cognitive psychologists. So Rajaram, a psychology ...

Registration is now open for TechConnect Ohio. Local technical talent and tech savvy job seekers are invited to attend the debut of TechConnect Ohio, a "fast-pitch" networking event that aims to connect motivated job seekers with hiring employers. This event includes multiple rounds of companies presenting their products and service, culture and available jobs followed by an informal round of networking. Attendees can meet the company representatives, ask questions, exchange contact information and learn more. Professional career coaches will be offering free ...

Boulder, CO, USA - GSA Bulletin is now offering pre-issue publication of papers online. GSA invites you to sign up for e-alerts and be the first to have access to new journal content as it becomes available. Sign in at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts with your e-mail address to manage your subscriptions for full tables of contents, TOC notification-only alerts, new "ahead of print" postings, subspecialty alerts, GSA announcements, and more. Keywords: Arkansas, Prairie Creek lamproite field, paleosols, Franciscan Complex, Coast Range Ophiolite, Blue Mountains Province, ...

People who have a heart attack are likely to be more seriously affected if the attack happens in the morning, reveals research published ahead of print in Heart journal. Heart attacks that occur between 6am and noon are more likely to leave a 20% larger area of dead tissue (infarct) caused by the attack, which is more serious for the person affected, than at any other time of the day. It is well established that a person's 24 hour body clock influences several cardiovascular physiological processes including the incidence of heart attacks, which tend to happen more ...

A novel strategy developed by autism researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, called "The One-Year Well-Baby Check Up Approach," shows promise as a simple way for physicians to detect cases of Autism Syndrome Disorder (ASD), language or developmental delays in babies at an early age. Led by Karen Pierce, PhD, assistant professor in the UC San Diego Department of Neurosciences, researchers at the UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) assembled a network of 137 pediatricians in the San Diego region and initiated a systematic screen ...

As people around the world prepare for summer, health and weight loss are at the top of everyone's mind. This is the time when people pledge to improve themselves in a multitude of ways, and countless fads and training routines sprout up to help consumers address their health and fitness needs. Most health and wellness programs come and go quickly, but one weight loss option that's had surprising staying power is African Mango Extract. African Mango Extract (or Irvingia Gabonensis, as it is medically known) allows the body to burn excess bodyfat by using that fat as ...

A five-minute checklist that parents can fill out in pediatrician waiting rooms may someday help in the early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Published today in the Journal of Pediatrics, the study's design also provides a model for developing a network of pediatricians to adopt such a change to their practice. "Beyond this exciting proof of concept, such a screening program would answer parents' concerns about their child's possible ASD symptoms earlier and with more confidence than has ever ...

A new study reports that the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for U.S. adults with arthritis is much worse than for those without this condition. Both physical and mental health are affected by arthritis, which poses a significant health and economic burden as the number of those diagnosed continues to climb. Details of this study are now online in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Approximately, 50 million Americans have doctor-diagnosed arthritis, and the Centers for Disease ...

Allowing adolescents to drink alcohol under adult supervision does not appear to teach responsible drinking as teens get older. In fact, such a "harm-minimization" approach may actually lead to more drinking and alcohol-related consequences, according to a new study in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. "Kids need parents to be parents and not drinking buddies," according to the study's lead researcher, Barbara J. McMorris, Ph.D., of the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota. Allowing adolescents to drink with adults present ...

An individual's personality can have a big effect on their life. Some people are outgoing and gregarious while others find novel situations stressful which can be detrimental to their health and wellbeing. Increasingly, scientists are discovering that animals are no different. A new study led by Dr Kathryn Arnold, of the Environment Department at the University of York has added important experimental evidence showing that animal personalities are reflected in their oxidative stress profiles. The research is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Dr Arnold ...