American Brick Company (Ambrico) recently announced an exciting partnership with Summitville Brick. Summitville, a leading floor brick provider in the US, offers thin brick in 14 colors - with each color available in a wide range of shades. Offering custom color matching and special orders for unique sizes, Summitville thin brick products are sure to be a hit in the Ambrico product showroom. As with all of the thin brick solutions offered by Ambrico, Summitville Brick offers highly durable products that are designed to look great and stand up to everyday wear and tear. ...

Magento, an open source ecommerce platform currently powering over 90,000 online merchants, recently awarded Niche Retail Gold status in the company's newly launched Magento Solutions Partner program. The Magento Partner program promises to be a success for firms who specialize in developing ecommerce solutions at the Enterprise and Community level. Gold and silver members are recognized as leaders in Magento development and receive the highest level of visibility and support within the Magento community. As a Certified Gold Partner, Niche Retail will enjoy priority placement ...

Closets by Design has a reputation as an industry leader in building custom closet organizers and home organizational closet systems. Taking advantage of the products offered by Closets by Design begins with scheduling a no-obligation appointment for an in-home design consultation. Comprehensive services are offered along with the best value in the industry and the highest quality of product construction that's available. Closets by Design understands that people can only fully enjoy their homes if the environment is neat and organized. And a cluttered home just ...

Baby Boomers' Lifestyles announces the publishing of its new website: www.BabyBoomersLifestyles.org. This site is designed to be the "go-to" site for all Baby Boomers to congregate and interact. Why go to the trouble of surfing for items of interest? Trust Baby Boomers' Lifestyles to bring the "best of the best" information on the topics closest to boomers hearts. Common topics of interest to Baby Boomers are: -how to be more attractive to the opposite sex -how to make more money without working harder -how to feel better and live longer ...

No doubt about it. Dipak Nanalal Chudasama, BDS, MS, MORTH RCS, CAGS, MBA is a team player. He learned that from his years as a world class athlete. So when offered the chance to join the largest orthodontic team in North Texas, Chudasama enthusiastically accepted. He now runs the Lewisville, TX office for Apple Orthodontix. Dr. Chudasama is a man with a diverse background. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya and represented his country in table tennis tournaments in India, Tokyo and South Korea. He was an elite cricketer on the Kenya National Cricket team from 1990-1999 ...

Manufacturers who design new materials often struggle to understand viscous liquids at a molecular scale. Many substances including polymers and biological materials change upon cooling from a watery state at elevated temperatures to a tar-like consistency at intermediate temperatures, then become a solid "glass" similar to hard candy at lower temperatures. Scientists have long sought a molecular-level description of this theoretically mysterious, yet common, "glass transition" process as an alternative to expensive and time-consuming trial-and-error material discovery ...

It may not be as catchy a combination as "Miss Scarlet in the parlor with a revolver," but "polyester-rayon wipes in the field followed by saline-surfactant extraction and vortexing" is the most efficient solution to an important biological game of "Clue" deduced by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As reported in a recent paper*, the NIST team studied different methods for collecting, extracting and quantifying microbial spores from indoor surfaces to estimate parameters that should be considered in the development of a standard ...

Two groups of small fish, one from a Caribbean island and one from the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, exhibit some of the fastest rates of evolution known in any organism, according to a new UC Davis study. About 50 species of pupfish are found from Massachusetts to Venezuela -- and they are all pretty much the same, said lead study author Chris Martin, a UC Davis graduate student working with Peter Wainwright, a professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis. "They look the same and they act the same," eating detritus and algae off rocks, Martin said. Except in two ...

It is, undoubtedly, a huge privilege to live in a world crammed with the most incredible "must see" sights; however many lesser known places, hidden away in tucked away corners, often provide the most rewarding and personal experiences. Here are our Top 10 "Sight Swaps"... 1. Pisa for Bologna Queue behind tourists from all corners of the world to have your photo taken trying to "push back up" the leaning tower of Pisa, or head instead to the mediaeval leaning towers of Bologna, one of the largest and most perfectly preserved historic centres ...

Los Angeles, CA (APRIL 26, 2011) Despite the fact that nearly one-third of American households have a firearm, studies show that having a gun in the home poses a household a greater health risk than a potential benefit. A new study released in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (published by SAGE) examined scientific research on both sides of the debate to put hard numbers to this on-going discussion. Author David Hemenway studied the various risks of having a gun in the home, including accidents, suicide, homicide, and intimidation. Additionally, the benefits ...

The antimatter equivalent of helium nuclei has been produced by an international team of physicists working with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Two University of California, Davis, professors are members of the team. A paper describing their results is published online this week by the journal Nature. "This is the heaviest antimatter anyone has ever created," said Manuel Calderon de la Barca Sanchez, professor of physics at UC Davis and an author of the paper. Authors also include Daniel ...

You may have heard, watched or read the story...a seaside community zoo becomes the first U.S. zoo to perform a full-scale, total evacuation during a hurricane. The Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo made headlines in 2004 when Zoo Director Patti Hall relocated over 270 exotic zoo animals, a staff and their families, to her inland home to wait out Hurricane Ivan (category 4 storm). The zoo was destroyed, and while rebuilding, endured two more unprecedented evacuations ten months later during Hurricanes Dennis and Katrina. If this story doesn't ring a bell, it will... as the Alabama ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. –Group appointments where doctors see several people for a longer time may be feasible for Parkinson's disease, according to a new study published in the April 27, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Group visits have shown benefits for people with other chronic conditions, but have not been evaluated for people with Parkinson's disease. Group visits can allow patients more time with their doctor than they might have with individual appointments and more time for doctors to provide education ...

In this month's Physics World, Richard Taylor, professor of physics, psychology and art at the University of Oregon, warns that artificial retinal implants – a technology fast becoming a reality – must adapt to the unique features of the human eye in order to become an effective treatment. The gap between digital camera technology and the human eye is getting ever smaller, in terms of both the number of light-sensitive detectors and the space that they occupy. A human retina typically contains 127 million photoreceptors spread over an area of 1100 mm2. In comparison, ...

Using advanced DNA analysis and extensive field work, an international research team has confirmed the link between leprosy infection in Americans and direct contact with armadillos. In a joint collaboration between the Global Health Institute at EPFL in Switzerland and Louisiana State University, clear evidence was found that a never-before-seen strain of Mycobacterium leprae has emerged in the Southern United States and that it is transmitted through contact with armadillos carrying the disease. The results will be published on April 28th in the New England Journal of ...

Durham, N.C., and New York, N.Y.. – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and St. Luke's and Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University, have uncovered a new clue for why bariatric surgery is more effective than dietary remedies alone at controlling glucose levels. This discovery, and facts gleaned from their previous studies, provide even more evidence that branched-chain amino acids are biomarkers that deserve careful scrutiny in the development and treatment of diabetes. Physicians have observed that bariatric surgery results in improved blood sugar ...

BOSTON--Like brainy bookworms unprepared for the rough and tumble of post-graduation life, white blood cells trained by scientists to attack tumors tend to fade away quickly when injected into cancer patients. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists, however, have developed a technique that can cause such cells to survive in patients' bloodstreams for well over a year, in some cases, without the need of other, highly toxic treatments, a new study shows. In a paper published in the Apr. 27 issue of Science Translational Medicine, the researchers report the results of a ...

MIAMI – April 27, 2011 – The Agulhas Current which runs along the east coast of Africa may not be as well known as its counterpart in the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream, but researchers are now taking a much closer look at this current and its "leakage" from the Indian Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean. In a study published in the journal Nature, April 27, a global team of scientists led by University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science Associate Professor Lisa Beal, suggests that Agulhas Leakage could be a significant player in global climate variability. ...

Are classic sailing yachts becoming more popular than their motor yacht rivals? Figures are suggesting that maybe owing to economic and environmental conditions people are making a move from motor to sail. William Bishop, Head of YPI Sail explains, "Being at sea on a sailing yacht is an entirely different experience to being on a motor yacht. Sailing yachts allow you to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. There are few people not captivated by the beauty and grace of a sailing yacht gliding into anchorage at sail. They slice through the water so the only ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula. The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. But they also highlight how rapid climate change is affecting the region. The Duke University-led team tracked the super-aggregation of krill and whales during a six-week ...

A team of scientists led by Rice University has figured out why the Colorado Plateau – a 130,000-square-mile region that straddles Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico -- is rising even while parts of its lower crust appear to be falling. The massive, tectonically stable region of the western United States has long puzzled geologists. A paper published today in the journal Nature shows how magmatic material from the depths slowly rises to invade the lithosphere -- Earth's crust and strong uppermost mantle. This movement forces layers to peel away and sink, said lead ...

Washington, DC — Pain researchers from the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Medical Center have discovered that resiniferatoxin, a drug that has shown early promise as an option for chronic, severe pain sufferers, may decrease the body's ability to fight off bacterial infections, particularly sepsis. The study, which appears in the May 1 edition of the journal Anesthesiology, sheds new light on the role of a pain receptor, transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1), and how medications designed to impact this receptor's ...

Madison, Wis. – If you've ever lost your keys or stuck the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the refrigerator, you may have been the victim of a tired brain region that was taking a quick nap. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have a new explanation. They've found that some nerve cells in a sleep-deprived yet awake brain can briefly go "off line," into a sleep-like state, while the rest of the brain appears awake. "Even before you feel fatigued, there are signs in the brain that you should stop certain activities that may require alertness," says ...

DETROIT – Women are at higher risk than men of developing kidney damage after undergoing a coronary angiogram, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. Researchers found that women are 60 percent more likely than men to develop radiocontrast-induced nephropathy (RCIN), an adverse side effect that causes kidney dysfunction within 24 to 72 hours after patients are administered an iodine contrast dye during the common heart imaging test. This is believed to be the first study in which researchers investigated whether gender played a role in patients developing RCIN after ...

A new study uses creative engineering to unravel brain mechanisms associated with one of the most fundamental subjective human feelings: self-consciousness. The research, published by Cell Press in the April 28 issue of the journal Neuron, identifies a brain region called the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) as being critical for the feeling of being an entity localized at a particular position in space and for perceiving the world from this position and perspective. Recent theories of self-consciousness highlight the importance of integrating many different sensory and ...