RICHLAND, Wash. – High oil prices and environmental and economic security concerns have triggered interest in using algae-derived oils as an alternative to fossil fuels. But growing algae – or any other biofuel source – can require a lot of water. However, a new study shows that being smart about where we grow algae can drastically reduce how much water is needed for algal biofuel. Growing algae for biofuel, while being water-wise, could also help meet congressionally mandated renewable fuel targets by replacing 17 percent of the nation's imported oil for transportation, ...

Novelist Kailin Gow's highly popular young adult series The Frost Series and the PULSE Series again proved to be bestsellers among young adult fiction. The fourth books in each series, Frost Kisses and Blue Blood, were staples on Amazon.com's Top 100 Bestselling Teen Books Overall. The Frost Series Since the publication of Kailin Gow's highly popular Frost Series about dangerous but beautiful warring fairies, with Romeo and Juliet-scaled romance, each book in the Frost Series have become teen bestsellers. The first book, Bitter Frost, with its memorable cover of ...

Patients who receive intensive care services are very different in the United States than in the United Kingdom, according to a new study that compared admission and mortality statistics from ICUs in each country. The study found that U.K. patients are much sicker upon ICU admission, whereas U.S. patients are more likely to require continuing care after discharge and are often sent to skilled care facilities instead of home. "The U.S. has about seven times as many ICU beds available per capita than the U.K. We wanted to compare the two because they represent extremes ...

WHAT: Expanded use of active surveillance for bacteria and of barrier precautions—specifically, gloves and gowns—did not reduce the transmission of two important antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospital-based settings, according to a prospective, randomized clinical trial conducted in 18 intensive care units in the United States. Incomplete compliance by health care providers with recommended hand hygiene procedures and the use of gloves and gowns, along with time lags in confirming the presence of bacteria in patients, may have contributed to the findings, which ...

Drugs already in development to treat Alzheimer's disease may eventually be tapped for a different purpose altogether: re-growing the ends of injured nerves to relieve pain and paralysis. According to a new Johns Hopkins study, experimental compounds originally designed to combat a protein that builds up in Alzheimer's-addled brains appear to make crushed or cut nerve endings grow back significantly faster, a potential boon for those who suffer from neuropathies or traumatic injuries. The new drugs target a protein known as "-Site amyloid precursor protein cleaving ...

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians were faced with more than the demise of a political system. Working-age men began dying in droves, and the country saw a 40 percent surge in deaths between 1990 and 1994. The killer was often alcohol – that much was clear. And for years, many economists and political scientists have blamed Russia's lurch toward democracy and capitalism for driving those men to drink. They reasoned that privatization left many people unskilled and unemployable, ushering in a sense of listlessness and depression that mixed too easily with ...

It is well known that the human body has a highly developed immune system to detect and destroy invading pathogens and tumor cells. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that the body has a second line of defense against cancer – healthy cells. A new study shows that normal mammary epithelial cells, as they are developing, secrete interleukin 25, a protein known for its role in the immune system's response to inflammation, for the express purpose of killing nearby breast cancer cells. "We found ...

To ensure normal fetal development and prevent disease, it is crucial that certain genes are on or off in the right time intervals. Researchers in Professor Kristian Helin's group at BRIC, University of Copenhagen, have now shown how the TET1 enzyme controls the activity of our genes. The results are just published in the journal Nature. Control of our genes The complete human genetic code was mapped in 2000. However, it has become clear that the genetic code itself only in part can answer how an individual develops and is protected against disease. What is detrimental ...

Toygaroo.com, a pioneering online toy rental company, has announced that its services are now available for organizations in the hospitality industry. The company's unique service, which operates similar to Netflix, can now be easily integrated into existing hotel guest offerings, allowing them to provide toys available for families upon check-in. Once the guests have completed their stay and returned the toys, the hotel can then send the toys back to Toygaroo. "By working with us, hotels and resorts can improve their guest retention by offering activities for kids ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A new biophysical and biochemical study may lead to better understanding of how structural flexibility controls the interaction of a protein that is closely involved with cancer, aging and other chronic diseases -- thereby facilitating future development of better therapeutic strategies, according to a Kansas State University biochemist. Jianhan Chen, an assistant professor of biochemistry, was one of the researchers on a collaborative project that took a combined computational and experimental approach to understand how protein p21 functions as a versatile ...

BOSTON/NEW YORK – April 12, 2011 –A study by Columbia Business School Professor Jonathan Levav, Class of 1967 Associate Professor of Business, Marketing and Professor Shai Danziger, Chairperson, Department of Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Liora Avnaim-Pesso , a graduate student of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, recently featured online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), finds that a judge's willingness to grant parole can be influenced by the time between their latest ...

Among the many questions you need to ask prospective wedding photographers is whether they shoot weddings digitally or with traditional film. There are pros and cons for each type of photographic medium. Denver wedding photography expert Matt Kelly of Ambisuite Weddings said, "When choosing between digital and film, ask yourself what you want your wedding photographs to capture. Then look at the digital and film photography each photographer has taken. You should be able to make your decision then." Wedding Photographs: digital vs. film resolution Certainly you ...

Up equals good, happy, optimistic; down the opposite. Right is honest and trustworthy. Left, not so much. That's what language and culture tell us. "We use mental metaphors to structure our thinking about abstract things," says psychologist Daniel Casasanto, "One of those metaphors is space." But we don't all think right is right, Casasanto has found. Rather, "people associate goodness with the side they can act more fluently on." Right-handed people prefer the product, job applicant, or extraterrestrial positioned to their right. Lefties march to a left-handed drummer. ...

High levels of a protein associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation in the brain correlate with aspects of memory decline in otherwise cognitively normal older adults, according to a study led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. The study is being reported in a poster session at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting on Wednesday, April 13, 2011. Inflammation is part of the body's natural immune response to tissue damage. However, chronic inflammation is associated with many diseases. In the brain, it is thought to play a role ...

Ever since the devastating earthquake, tsunamis, and the subsequent nuclear crisis that have rocked Japan--not to mention the waves of discontent and revolution currently sweeping through the Middle East like a scirocco off the desert--speculation over the affects of these events upon global economics and trade has moved well beyond the strategic command centers of hedge funds and Forex exchanges to include the most volatile and potentially profitable trading platforms employed by today's active investors and traders. Questions about the value of the Yen, the price ...

It takes two unique types of mirrors working together to see farther back in time and space than ever before, and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have just received one of each type. Primary and Secondary Mirror Engineering Design Units (EDUs) have recently arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. from Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, Calif. and are undergoing examination and testing. When used on the James Webb Space Telescope those two types of mirrors will allow scientists to make those observations. "The Primary ...

Mike Mayer, President of MedReturn, LLC will provide testimony on the topic of prescription drug take back programs before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. The hearing entitled, "Warning: The Growing Danger of Prescription Drug Diversion," is scheduled for April 14 at 8:00 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The MedReturn Drug Disposal Unit provides a safe, secure, sustainable and environmentally friendly way to help law enforcement agencies and communities collect unwanted or expired ...

In a breakthrough that may aid treatment of learning impairments, strokes, tinnitus and chronic pain, UT Dallas researchers have found that brain nerve stimulation accelerates learning in laboratory tests. Another major finding of the study, published in the April 14 issue of Neuron, involves the positive changes detected after stimulation and learning were complete. Researchers monitoring brain activity in rats found that brain responses eventually returned to their pre-stimulation state, but the animals could still perform the learned task. These findings have allowed ...

For the first time, scientists at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network have shown in a clinical trial that the Toronto XVIVO System can safely and effectively treat, re-assess and improve the function of high-risk donor lungs so that they can be successfully transplanted into patients. The use of this technique could significantly expand the donor organ pool and improve outcomes after transplantation. In their pioneering work, a team of researchers led by Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, Senior Scientist at the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University Health ...

The Mountain Winery selected Hopelessly Romantic Media Productions (HRMP) as its publisher. Best known for publishing Hopelessly Romantic Magazine and The Classic Male Magazine, HRMP also handles custom magazine publishing for any size business. They also offer custom wedding magazines for couples who want to share their thoughts and photos with their guests as the perfect "Thank You" card. HRMP also produces video commercials for web and broadcast. When a paid magazine advertiser spends at least $500 on an ad, HRMP will create ad space for a local charity in that advertiser's ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study. The blitzkrieg advance of two closely related species of mussels---the zebra and quagga---is stripping the lakes of their life-supporting algae, resulting in a remarkable ecological transformation and threatening the multibillion-dollar U.S. commercial and recreational Great Lakes fisheries. Previous studies have ...

DALLAS – April 14, 2011 – A natural hormone known to inhibit aging can also protect kidneys against renal fibrosis, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have demonstrated. Scientists led by Dr. Makoto Kuro-o, associate professor of pathology, showed in mice that the anti-aging hormone Klotho suppressed both renal fibrosis – a common complication of chronic kidney disease – and the spread of cancer. The findings are available online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. More than 26 million people in the U.S. are affected by chronic kidney disease. Researchers ...

Cincinnati, OH, April 14, 2011 -- The number of couples struggling with infertility is on the rise, and these couples often use assisted reproductive technologies, like in vitro fertilization (IVF), to get pregnant. Although IVF can be successful, it can also increase the risk of multiple pregnancies (i.e., twins or triplets), which are often caused by transferring more than one embryo. Twins and triplets are likely to be born prematurely, and, as a result, many have medical complications. A new study soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics finds a major decrease ...

New York, NY, April 14, 2011—If implemented successfully, accountable care organizations (ACOs) have the ability to achieve better care, better population health, and lower costs, according to a new report released today by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Implementing ACOs effectively will be vital to their success and, to that end, the Commission report also includes 10 recommendations for effective implementation, focusing on the design, payment and functioning of ACOs. An accompanying Commonwealth Fund perspective contains an analysis ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, April 13, 2011 – The use of cognitive-behavioural therapy to treat tics in Tourette syndrome may be as effective as and even superior to medication in certain cases. According to a new study published in a special edition of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy by researchers from the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital affiliated with Université de Montréal, it was observed that therapy has an effect not only on tics, behaviour and thoughts, but also on brain activity. "This ...