This release is available in Spanish. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are playing a key role in efforts to contain the emerald ash borer's destructive march through the nation's forests. Researchers with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are testing a fungal pathogen that could be used as a biocontrol, along with the release of non-stinging wasps that are the beetle's natural enemies. Wasps have been released in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland, and releases are planned in several other states. John Vandenberg, ...

BINGHAMTON, NY – It's an unfamiliar neighborhood and you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of streets and buildings you've never seen before. Giving the environment a quick once-over, you make a snap decision about whether you're safe or not. And chances are, that first 'gut' call is the right one, say Binghamton University researchers Dan O'Brien and David Sloan Wilson in an article published in the current issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In a recent series of studies conducted in Binghamton, New York, evolutionary biologists, O'Brien and ...

Governor Cuomo's proposal to limit the recovery of damages for pain and suffering to victims of medical negligence to $250,000 was, thankfully, defeated in the New York State Legislature Shamefully, however, something with a far devastating impact on the health of children injured by obstetrical negligence was passed and is now the law in New York. Buried in the $132.5 Billion Budget was the creation of the "New York Medical Indemnity Fund." Here's the way the fund works and why its consequences are so dangerous to children injured by malpractice at birth: The ...

Having power over others and having choices in your own life share a critical foundation: control, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The paper finds that people are willing to trade one source of control for the other. For example, if people lack power, they clamor for choice, and if they have an abundance of choice they don't strive as much for power. "People instinctively prefer high to low power positions," says M. Ena Inesi of London Business School. "Similarly, it feels good when ...

Lower vitamin D levels may explain part of the disparity in hypertension that exists between Black and White people in the US. High blood pressure is more common in Blacks than in Whites and persons with darker skin generally produce less vitamin D. This is particularly true at higher latitudes where UV radiation is less intense and the climates are colder leading to less skin exposure. Dr. Kevin Fiscella, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in the US, and colleagues identify vitamin D status as one piece of the complex puzzle of race and blood pressure. ...

People who have strokes are often left with moderate to severe physical impairments. Now, thanks to a glove developed at McGill, stroke patients may be able to recover hand motion by playing video games. The Biomedical Sensor Glove was developed by four final-year McGill Mechanical Engineering undergrads under the supervision of Professor Rosaire Mongrain. It is designed to allow patients to exercise in their own homes with minimal supervision, while at the same time permitting doctors to monitor their progress from a distance, thus cutting down on hospital visits and ...

The Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Airport Hotel (North, I-85) offers convenient lodging to guests attending Georgia Tech Spring 2011 Commencement Ceremonies. The PhD Ceremony will be held at 7:00pm on Friday, May 6 at Ferst Center for the Arts and the Master's and Bachelor's Ceremony will be held at 12:00pm on Sunday, May 8 at Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta. Spring commencement is a special annual event for Georgia Tech graduates. The National Science Foundation Director, Dr. Subra Suresh, will be the speaker at the PhD Ceremony. The Master's and Bachelor's Ceremony speaker ...

When it comes to dreaming about diamonds, energy efficiency and powerful information processing aren't normally the thoughts that spring to mind. Unless, of course, you are a quantum physicist looking to create the most secure and powerful networks around. Researchers at the University of Calgary and Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, have come up with a way to use impurities in diamonds as a method of creating a node in a quantum network. In addition to making powerful and secure networks, this discovery may also help sensitive measurements of magnetic fields ...

BOSTON--Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have discovered new details of how cancer cells escape from tumor suppression mechanisms that normally prevent these damaged cells from multiplying. They also demonstrated a potential link between this cell proliferation control mechanism and the cognitive deficits caused by Down syndrome. The findings add to a still-sparse understanding of how normal and cancerous cell growth is regulated and have potential implications for improved treatments, say the authors of a pair of articles in Genes & Development. James A. DeCaprio, ...

Hampton Inn Spartanburg hotel (North I-85) offers affordable lodging to family and friends attending the May 2011 Commencement Ceremony at University of South Carolina Upstate. The event is scheduled for 7:00pm on Tuesday, May 3, on the Quad behind the Administration Building. Eight hundred students will receive their diplomas. The Spring Commencement Ceremony is a popular annual event at USC Upstate. The commencement address will be delivered by Dr. John C. Stockwell. Stockwell has served as chancellor of USC Upstate since July 1994 and will retire in July 2011. He ...

Reliant Technology, an IBM and EMC reseller and supplier, is pleased to welcome Caragh Stichter as the latest addition to its EMC Storage Sales team. Stichter was previously with Automotive Broadcasting Network, where she worked to help customers achieve their goals through focused consultation. Caragh Stichter will serve as a dedicated EMC Storage Consultant. Reliant Technology is dedicated to providing superior customer service, and Stichter's knowledge and consulting experience will be a valuable asset to both the company and its EMC storage clients. Reliant Technology ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Two discoveries at UC Santa Barbara point to potential new drug therapies for patients with kidney disease. The findings are published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Over 600,000 people in the U.S., and 12 million worldwide, are affected by the inherited kidney disease known as autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease, or ADPKD. The disease is characterized by the proliferation of cysts that eventually debilitate the kidneys, causing kidney failure in half of all patients by the time they reach ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have found a way to use magnetic "nanobeads" to help detect chemical and biological agents, with possible applications in everything from bioterrorism to medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring or even water and food safety. When fully developed as a hand-held, portable sensor, like something you might see in a science fiction movie, it will provide a whole diagnostic laboratory on a single chip. The research could revolutionize the size, speed and accuracy of chemical detection systems around the world. New ...

Atlanta tree service company Yellow Ribbon Tree Experts is encouraging community members throughout the metro Atlanta area to celebrate Arbor Day this spring. The nationwide holiday commemorates and acknowledges the importance of trees to our environment and society. Yellow Ribbon Tree Experts views Arbor Day as an opportunity to and learn about arboriculture and practice proper tree maintenance. Yellow Ribbon Tree Experts is a tree service company, specializing in Atlanta tree removal, tree trimming, and storm damage response. Arbor Day is celebrated nationally on ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (April 26, 2011) -- Take millions of puzzle pieces containing partial words and put them back together into full words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters until the book these random parts came from is rebuilt. That daunting process in not unlike sequencing an organism's genome, says University of Oregon biologist Eric A. Johnson, a member of the UO Institute of Molecular Biology. His lab developed a patent-pending technology for discovering differences between genomes called restriction-site associated DNA markers, or RAD. They have now shown that RAD ...

Cool Site of the Day owner Mike Corso announces the newest prize to complement his arsenal of daily web awards by introducing the 'Cool Site of the Month' award. The Cool Site of the Month Award will fall to the 'Cool Site of the Day' web owner whose site receives the highest rating during the calendar month (based on visitor ratings). The winner will keep his or her presence on the Cool Site of the Day home page for 12 months, and will be announced to media outlets to garner further exposure and improve its search engine marketing. This honor will potentially improve a ...

On the Front Range within the Rocky Mountains, prevailing winds sweep eastward over the mountains smack into the National Wind Technology Center. Several wind turbines, some taller than a 40-story building, spin and hum at the site, just outside of Boulder, Colo., waiting for an experiment to start in the next month. The turbines not only produce power, they produce wakes – similar to what forms in bodies of water – that are invisible ripples and waves and other disturbances in the atmosphere downstream that can damage turbines and decrease efficiency. Lawrence Livermore ...

Michael Lasky, founder and president of I-Volution, Inc., which owns and operates the number one ranked websites, including www.BachelorettePartyFun.com, www.BachelorPartyFun.com, www.Bridesmaid101.com, www.Groomsmen411.com and www.BabyShower101.com, announced that his network of sites will have close to 9 million visitors this year and is sponsoring a one thousand dollar ($1000) sweepstakes in honor of the upcoming Spring 2011 Universal Pictures movie release of "Bridesmaids". Michael Lasky, who himself, was just married in October 2010, is very aware of ...

As they might with most endangered animals, scientists consider the whereabouts and activities of right whales extremely important. "It is helpful to know where they go, why they go there and what they do when they're there," says Mark F. Baumgartner of the biology department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Baumgartner and his colleagues studied the behavior of right whales and sei whales—both endangered species of baleen whales—in the waters of the Gulf of Maine to the east of Nantucket. They found that the location, the length of stay, and perhaps ...

The White House recently announced plans to step up government efforts to curb the prescription drug epidemic in this country. National Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske stated in a press conference last week, "What we are seeing is an epidemic of prescription drug abuse. We now have more people dying as a result of overdoses driven by prescription drugs than are dying from drug shot wounds in this country." In an effort to stem the death toll and over all ravages of prescription drug addiction, the White House announced plans for a comprehensive approach to the ...

The general notion is that credit cards are tools to jeopardize a persons financial standing. People are so apprehensive about this that they don't readily apply for credit cards. But, if you use them well, then these could actually be credit builders for you. There are many such tips on Credit Builder Credit Cards that you can use. You will find that your credit not only improves, but you are also able to manage your credit easily if you know what to do. Let us take a look at some ways in which you can use a credit card to build credit. Using a Prepaid Credit Card Prepaid ...

Thousands of Professionals searching for jobs are posting their resumes on websites all over the Internet. The chances of getting a call back is very slim, especially since the average human resources office today is over loaded with hundreds of resumes from other interested candidates. But with no other apparent resources to find work, many are willing to take their chances. Yet how much simpler would it be if you had a friend at a company who would recommend you for the position. It has been said that the best jobs come from word of mouth. Experts agree that networking ...

To aid advanced and intermediate students who find difficulty in learning Chinese, Kevin Nadolny, founder of Capturing Chinese, has published another masterpiece of Lu Xun --- The New Year's Sacrifice. This new book is part of the Capturing Chinese series written by the Father of Modern Chinese Literature, Lu Xun. Every book is set in an inventive format to ease the painstaking process of mastering the Chinese language. Founder and author, Kevin Nadolny, has devised a unique approach to learn Chinese literature. Kevin who was once foreign to the language has succeeded ...

Poems, letters, extended verse and photos combine to reveal intricate, elaborate imagery that completely embodies the spirit of love and devotion in heralded poet Valentinno's critically and commercially acclaimed new collection, A Romantic's Passion: The Tenth Muse "Phenomenal." "Intriguing." "Enthralling." These are some of the things reviewers and readers have been compelled to say after being introduced to Valentinno's work. Divided into five books (Romance, Letters, Love, Desire, Passion) and interspersed with journal entries, photos ...

Paul A. Falzone, CEO of eLove Matchmaking, one of the world's largest matchmaking services weighs in, "Most people who elect to use online dating services do understand that there is inherent risk to it. Screening new members against the national sex offender registry may give a false sense of security." He continued, "Profile authentication is a challenge for internet dating sites as there is no way to confirm that a person is who he/she claims to be and that they do not have a criminal record. Positive identification and full criminal background checks ...