PHILADELPHIA—A widely-available yet expensive radiotherapy technique used to treat prostate cancer patients after surgery has promising benefits—higher dose and less damage to the rectum and bladder—compared to a less precise technique, Thomas Jefferson University researchers document for the first time in a new study published in Practical Radiation Oncology. A team of radiation oncologists and medical physicists, including lead author Amy Harrison, M.S., the medical physics clinical supervisor at Jefferson, show that intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) allows a ...

In low-risk pregnant women, high induction and first-cesarean delivery rates do not lead to improved outcomes for newborns, according to new research published in the April issue of The Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine. The finding that rates of intervention at delivery – whether high, low, or in the middle – had no bearing on the health of new babies brings into question the skyrocketing number of both inductions and cesarean deliveries in the United States. "Like virtually all medical therapies and procedures, these interventions entail some risk for ...

Tiny crustaceans called copepods rule the world, at least when it comes to oceans and estuaries. The most numerous multi-cellular organisms in the seas, copepods are an important link between phytoplankton and fish in marine food webs. To understand and predict how copepods respond to environmental change, scientists need to know not only how many new copepods are born, but how many are dying, say biological oceanographers David Elliott of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), and Kam Tang of ...

Driving while under the influence doesn't just mean that you've exceeded the allowable blood-alcohol threshold. In Arizona, you can be arrested even if you had a drink but are not legally intoxicated. Typically, a driver can be charged with a DUI offense if his blood-alcohol content (BAC) is .08 percent or higher. In Arizona, however, two provisions in the state's criminal traffic law allow police to charge drivers with DUI even if their BAC is less than the legal limit. According to the provisions, a driver can be charged with lower BAC levels if seen driving erratically. ...

TORONTO, April 13, 2011 – The role of family in ending youth homelessness is largely ignored in Canada, according to a report released today by York University, though there is evidence that family reconnection works in Australia and the United Kingdom and in one exceptional program in Toronto. Some 65,000 young people are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada. In Toronto, approximately 1,700 youth are on the streets on any given night, about half of them in emergency shelters. "In Canada, we really need to radically reform our approach to youth homelessness," ...

Door2Tour.com, the website tour consolidator, has released new figures that show 'staycations' are likely to be around for a long time to come as they report a sales increase of 65% in bookings for UK coach breaks. This could be down to the surge in Internet searches for UK coach holidays and day trips proving that more customers are opting for staycations rather than European coach tours, as they are likely to get a much better deal and possibly avoid unnecessary travelling hassle. The popularity for UK coach breaks is significantly high for the first three months ...

A combination of forest byproducts and crustacean shells may be the key to removing radioactive materials from drinking water, researchers from North Carolina State University have found. "As we're currently seeing in Japan, one of the major health risks posed by nuclear accidents is radioactive iodide that dissolves into drinking water. Because it is chemically identical to non-radioactive iodide, the human body cannot distinguish it – which is what allows it to accumulate in the thyroid and eventually lead to cancer," says Dr. Joel Pawlak, associate professor of forest ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study from Rhode Island Hospital researchers shows that obese individuals with social anxiety related only to their weight may experience anxiety as severe as individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD). The findings directly conflict with the criteria for SAD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV). The study is now published online in advance of print in the journal Depression and Anxiety. The DSM-IV indicates that an individual with a medical condition should only be diagnosed with social anxiety ...

Thistle has announced the appointment of Paul Watson as general manager of its Thistle London Heathrow hotel. Having worked for the company for almost three years, Watson has proved to be a respected and highly capable manager, and has ambitious plans for the Heathrow airport-based hotel. After finishing university, Watson began his hotel career as Food & Beverage manager at Stapleford Park and quickly developed a passion for the hotel industry. Over the proceeding five years, he has worked his way up to take on a number of senior roles, including operations manager ...

Northern Rock has enhanced its interactive new savings website with an animated video guide to help savers steer their way through the ISA maze. To coincide with the beginning of the new tax year, when the individual tax-free* Cash ISA subscription limit increased to GBP5,340 for this tax year, Northern Rock has now added the informative four minute guide to its recently revamped savings and investment website. The guide is designed to help customers make the most of their money in an accessible way, by highlighting the benefits of tax-free* savings accounts and telling ...

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA — Canada needs better regulation and oversight of food safety to protect Canadians as the current system is lax, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/doi/10.1503/cmaj.110453. "Canada's public and private sectors are not doing enough to prevent food-borne illnesses," writes Dr. Paul Hébert, Editor-in-Chief with coauthors. "Among the major failings are inadequate active surveillance systems, an inability to trace foods from "farm to fork" and a lack of incentives to keep food safe along the "farm ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- When one cloud of gas meets another, they normally pass right through each other. But now, MIT physicists have created clouds of ultracold gases that bounce off each other like bowling balls, even though they are a million times thinner than air — the first time that such impenetrable gases have been observed. While this experiment involved clouds of lithium atoms, cooled to near absolute zero, the findings could also help explain the behavior of similar systems such as neutron stars, high-temperature superconductors, and quark-gluon plasma, the hot ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- For most of the 20th century, the paradigm of wireless communication was a radio station with a single high-power transmitter. As long as you were within 20 miles or so of the transmitter, you could pick up the station. With the advent of cell phones, however, and even more so with Wi-Fi, the paradigm became a large number of scattered transmitters with limited range. When a user moves out of one transmitter's range and into another's, the network has to perform a "handoff." And as anyone who's lost a cell-phone call in a moving car or lost a Wi-Fi ...

The National Trust has predicted an early and fantastic display of bluebells this year following the mild and dry start to 2011. After an exceptionally cold December, the coldest for more than a century, bluebells are beginning to bloom a couple of weeks earlier than usual following the mildest February in nearly a decade* and the driest March for 40 years that had higher than average sunshine levels**. In 2010 bluebells were emerging up to three weeks late in some parts of the country - the latest for fifteen years - after the coldest winter for more than 30 years. Matthew ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Last year's $2 billion shutdown of European airspace following a volcanic eruption in Iceland alerted everyone to the danger that ash clouds can pose to aircraft engines. Now, researchers have discovered that a new class of ceramic coatings could offer jet engines special protection against volcanic ash damage in the future. For a study published online in the Early View edition of the journal Advanced Materials, the researchers tested two coatings that were originally developed to keep airborne sand from damaging jet engines, and found that the coatings ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers here have created the first electronic circuit to merge traditional inorganic semiconductors with organic "spintronics" – devices that utilize the spin of electrons to read, write and manipulate data. Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, assistant professor of physics, and his team combined an inorganic semiconductor with a unique plastic material that is under development in colleague Arthur J. Epstein's lab at Ohio State University. Last year, Epstein, Distinguished University Professor of physics and chemistry and director of the Institute for ...

Global Fiberglass Solutions, Inc., Bellevue, WA based company announces that it is now in talks with international fiberglass manufacturers, state governments and national government representatives to build and manage facilities to collect and recycle fiberglass on a national basis, once collected the fiberglass will be used as the base to produce products that will be much stronger than the alternatives and recyclable. The technology and process is proprietary and not being utilized by any other company or government agency, This will change the way fiberglass and ...

An international study published today warns that nitrogen pollution, resulting from industry and agriculture, is putting wildlife in Europe's at risk. More than 60 per cent of the EU's most important wildlife sites receive aerial nitrogen pollution inputs above sustainable levels. There is evidence of impacts on semi-natural grasslands, heathlands and forests across Europe. This threat is set to continue unless there is further action on emissions of polluting nitrogen gases. The study calls for a unified methodology of assessing the impact of aerial nitrogen ...

Researchers are reporting discovery of a scientific basis for extending the shelf life of beer so that it stays fresh and tastes good longer. For the first time, they identified the main substances that cause the bitter, harsh aftertaste of aged beer and suggest that preventing the formation of these substances could help extend its freshness. Their findings appear in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Thomas Hofmann and colleagues point out that beer can develop an unpleasant, bitter aftertaste as it ages. Unlike wine, scotch whiskey, and bourbon, beer ...

JUPITER, FL, April 13, 2011 – Using advanced imaging technology, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a change in chemical influx into a specific set of neurons in the common fruit fly that is fundamental to long-term memory. The study was published in the April 13, 2011 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. "In studying fruit flies' learning and long-term memory storage, we observed an increase in calcium influx into a specific set of brain neurons in normal fruit flies that was absent in 26 different mutants known to ...

After years of neglect, scientists and policy makers are focusing more attention on developing technologies needed to make the so-called "green grid" possible, according to an article in ACS' Chemical Reviews. That's the much-needed future electrical grid, an interconnected network for delivering solar and wind-based electricity from suppliers to consumers. Zhenguo (Gary) Yang and colleagues point out that concerns over the use of coal, oil, and other fuels that contribute to global warming and are in limited supply, have spurred interest in generating electrical energy ...

Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. April 12, 1861. At exactly 4:30AM, with a faint, dim light rising over the horizon, the first muted boom of a cannon sounded from Fort Johnson on the west side of the harbor. What followed was an explosive roar of cannon which rippled like a wave in a counter-clockwise direction - officially declaring the South's independence from the United States. For the last 24 hours, we have received numerous dispatches from Charleston. At precisely 3:20AM, we learned that the Confederates informed Major Anderson that they would open fire in one ...

Textiles and rope fragments found in a Peruvian cave have been dated to around 12,000 years ago, making them the oldest textiles ever found in South America, according to a report in the April issue of Current Anthropology. The items were found 30 years ago in Guitarrero Cave high in the Andes Mountains. Other artifacts found along with the textiles had been dated to 12,000 ago and even older. However, the textiles themselves had never been dated, and whether they too were that old had been controversial, according to Edward Jolie, an archaeologist at Mercyhurst College ...

Frog and toad skins already are renowned as cornucopias of hundreds of germ-fighting substances. Now a new report in ACS's Journal of Proteome Research reveals that the toad brains also may contain an abundance of antibacterial and antiviral substances that could inspire a new generation of medicines. Ren Lai and colleagues point out that scientists know little about the germ-fighting proteins in amphibian brains, despite many studies showing that amphibians synthesize and secrete a remarkably diverse array of antimicrobial substances in their skin. So they decided to ...

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