National Trust Holiday Cottages has launched its new 2011 holiday cottage brochure, featuring 400 cottages in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The brochure includes over 20 new cottages for 2011 in locations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as a new 'celebration' collection which showcases a range of holiday cottages which are ideal for larger groups, many of which offer catering services. The Trust has also added a new red squirrel logo to indicate which of the properties provide early booking offers throughout the year and a holiday snaps competition ...

2entertain is revving up ready for the release on 22nd November of the latest DVD from Top Gear which will be titled Top Gear Apocalypse. Top Gear tinkers Richard Hammond and James May have always wondered about what motoring would be like in a post apocalyptic world and now in the new 2entertain DVD they get to find out. Top Gear: Apocalypse gives all the tips anyone could ever need to survive in the event of the ultimate calamity and as usual it will also help to answer some of those vitally important questions which only the Top Gear presenters are willing to ...

Littlewoods Europe has announced it is looking for Expats to take part in its new podcast. The retailer is looking for Expats who live in France, Spain, Portugal or Germany so it can interview them about what life is like as in Expat in the country they live in. Interviewee's for the Littlewoods Europe Gust Podcast would then be put online on the Littlewoods Europe blog. If Expats agree to take part, the interview will be recorded either via Skype or face to face, depending on the location of the Expat. Littlewoods Europe is looking for interesting or amusing ...

Debenhams has revealed that even though Prince William and Kate Middleton are opting for a summer wedding, research from high street retailer shows that other couples are watching the pennies and opting for a cheaper winter wedding instead. Winter weddings are up 28 per cent with the week of Sunday 26th December, which includes Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, now as popular as the first week in July, previously known as the peak wedding week. The change was noted when the Debenhams wedding list service experienced a record number of couples registering lists in September ...

Thistle Hotels is celebrating the completion of its refurbishment of The Portland by Thistle, formerly Thistle Manchester. From this significant investment, the hotel has been transformed into a contemporary, relaxing and stylish base - ideal for business and leisure guests wanting a comfortable, quality experience in the heart of the city.    The enhancement project, that saw the hotel revert to its original name of The Portland as a mark to its heritage which dates back to its warehouse beginnings in 1851, has taken eight months to complete across seven floors ...

This site features a fresh rotation of dynamic banner ads from the best online storefronts bringing you the most exclusive deals and available discount offers. Most advertisements include coupon codes for extra savings when you're ready to check out. The home page also features a "most popular" section which allows you to view the advertisements which are drawing the most attention. Using a regular search engine allows you to pinpoint what you are looking for (which isn't a bad thing). However, at Rotoclick, we bring you all types of products and services from a-z, usually ...

Duane P. Snyder will announce the discovery of the first and only known ICE METEORITE containing EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE-FORMS on November 30, 2010 at 10:00am at the Ramada Inn Center, 1555 Phoenix Road, South Haven, MI 49090. Also to be announced: The ICE METEORITE's particle analysis, it's gas analysis, where it likely came from and PHOTOS of EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE-FORMS found in the melt-water of the ICE METEORITE. Dr. Albert Schnieders of Tascon USA Inc, Chestnut Ridge, New York 10977, has commented that we basically found nearly all elements up to 90u in the sample ...

CHICAGO -- Natural killer cells are major weapons in the body's immune system. They keep the body healthy by knocking off tumors and cells infected with viruses, bombarding them with tiny lethal pellets. But natural killer cells are powerless against HIV, a fact that has bedeviled science for over 20 years. Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have discovered the reason why. The study, posted online this week in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Cell Host & Microbe, marks the "beginning of a fascinating story that will shed new light on an important ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders continues to increase, the one thing that won't change is the need for those children to develop social skills. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are developing an effective social competence curriculum, with a virtual classroom component, that could help educators meet the demand of this growing population. Janine Stichter, a professor of special education at the MU College of Education, and her team have developed a curriculum that has shown success in an after-school format ...

Scientists trying to get a grip on the arms race between plant-eating insects and the defenses put up by their hosts just got a boost from new research by a University of Arizona entomologist published in the early view edition of Molecular Ecology. Noah Whiteman, an assistant professor in the UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, has found a miniature ecosystem consisting of a plant and a tiny fly that spends its entire life cycle on the plant. What makes this system special is the fact that both its key players – the plant and the insect – are what ...

1. Moderate Drinking Benefits Kidney Transplant Recipients Modest Amounts of Alcohol Prevent Diabetes and Premature Death Moderate alcohol consumption reduces one's risk for diabetes and premature death in the general population. To find if the same were true for stable kidney transplant recipients, Dorien Zelle (University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands) and her colleagues studied 600 renal transplant recipients who had their transplant more than one prior and followed them for several years post-transplant. Of these, 288 (48%) were abstainers, 94 (16%) ...

African Americans—along with some groups of Hispanics—have faster rates of decline in kidney function compared to white Americans, according to a study presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 43rd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition. "Racial/ethnic differences are present early, before chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been established," comments Carmen A. Peralta, MD (University of California, San Francisco). Based on a large nationwide study of heart disease risk factors (the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis), the researchers analyzed data on ...

Among kidney disease patients, earlier care from a nephrologist is associated with a decreased likelihood of developing end-stage renal disease and a lower risk of death during the first year of dialysis, according to a study presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 43rd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition. Although confirmatory studies are needed, increasing the number of patients who receive nephrologist treatment for advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) could have a substantial impact on the currently high U.S. ESRD rates as well as improve outcomes ...

Older adults with even mildly decreased levels of sodium in the blood (hyponatremia) experience increased rates of fractures and falls, according to a study presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 43rd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition. Falls are a serious health problem for the elderly and account for about 50 percent of deaths due to injury in the elderly. "Screening for a low sodium concentration in the blood, and treating it when present, may be a new strategy to prevent fractures," comments Ewout J. Hoorn, MD, PhD (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, ...

1. Potassium Citrate May Help Prevent and Treat Osteoporosis Supplement Neutralizes Bone Damage Inflicted by the Western Diet The Western diet creates an acidic environment in the body that removes calcium from bones and may contribute to the development of osteoporosis. Healthy adults who consume the standard US diet sustain a chronic, low-grade state of acidosis that worsens with age as kidney function declines, limiting urinary acid excretion. Reto Krapf, MD (University of Basel, in Bruderholz/Basel, Switzerland) and colleagues designed a study to see if daily alkali ...

LOS ANGELES (Nov. 19, 2010) – In a study of more than 4,500 children, researchers found those with higher waist circumferences had significantly higher pulse pressures, which is known to increase the risk of heart-related disorders, according to an abstract presented today at the American Society of Nephrology's Renal Week conference in Denver. Gangadarshni Chandramohan, MD, a researcher at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) and the lead author of the abstract, said the research team studied data from 4,667 children aged ...

Moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may be an auto-immunity problem, according to researchers in Spain, who studied the presence of auto-antibodies in patients with COPD and compared them to levels of control subjects. They found that a significant number of patients with COPD had significant levels of auto-antibodies circulating in their blood, about 5 to 10 times the level in controls. The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "We ...

TORONTO, Nov. 19, 2010--For every one person in Canada who is homeless, another 23 live in unsafe, crowded or unaffordable housing, meaning the country's housing crisis is even worse than previously thought, according to Dr. Stephen Hwang of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Those "vulnerably housed" people have the same severe health problems and dangers of assault as homeless people, said Hwang, principal investigator of a new report on housing and health issues in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa. "The key point is that Canada needs a national housing strategy," ...

Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables per day is one of the means that experts most frequently recommend for preventing cancer. Now, the European EPIC study carried out by researchers from 10 countries has shown that, in the case of lung cancer, the important thing is not just the quantity but also the variety of fruit consumed, which can reduce the risk by up to 23%. "This research looks more deeply into the relationship between diet and lung cancer", María José Sánchez Pérez, co-author of the study and director of the Granada Cancer Registry at the Andalusian ...

Researchers from Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and other universities have published a special section in the journal Ecological Economics that analyzes the link between ecological economics and political ecology. This issue stems from the institute's research on impacts and resistance at the "commodity frontiers", where the extraction of natural resources and the disposal of toxic wastes produce a range of economic, environmental, cultural and social conflicts. The special issue, titled Social Metabolism, ...

Researchers from the University of Southampton have helped construct an online interactive world map which gives stark facts and figures about the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and following the birth of their child. Social scientists Professor Zoë Matthews and Dr Sarah Neal are working in collaboration with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the University of Aberdeen on a joint project worth in excess of £160,000 called 'The Atlas of Birth', which also includes a book, short film and flyers. "We are using data from the United Nations ...

For the first time, there is no need to chemically fix, stain or cut cells in order to study them. Instead, whole living cells are fast-frozen and studied in their natural environment. The new method delivers an immediate 3-D image, thereby closing a gap between conventional microscopic techniques. The new microscope delivers a high-resolution 3-D image of the entire cell in one step. This is an advantage over electron microscopy, in which a 3-D image is assembled out of many thin sections. This can take up to weeks for just one cell. Also, the cell need not be labelled ...

Scientists at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have identified both common and rare gene variants associated with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. In the largest genetic study of this psychiatric disorder, the researchers found intriguing clues to genes they are subjecting to further investigation, including genes active in neuronal signaling and in shaping interconnections among brain cells. Anorexia nervosa (AN) affects an estimated 9 in 1000 women in the United States. Patients have food refusal, weight loss, an irrational fear of weight gain even when ...

Boston, Mass. – Although people infected with HIV produce many antibodies against the protein encapsulating the virus, most of these antibodies are strangely ineffective at fighting the disease. A new study suggests why some of the most common of these antibodies don't work: they target the protein in a form it takes after the virus has already invaded the cell, when it's too late, report researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and their colleagues. The findings, published online Nov. 14 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, refocus attention on the ...

MONTREAL, CANADA - November 19, 2010 - Data presented today from a pivotal, phase III randomized clinical trial for patients with recurrent glioblastoma tumors suggest that Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) therapy may increase median survival time and improve quality of life scores compared to best standard of care chemotherapy. Professor Zvi Ram, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, presented the data at the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Annual Scientific Meeting. Physicians delivered the investigational TTF therapy to patients ...