Next-of-Kin Registry The New Jersey legislature is paving the way to create a statewide voluntary program that would notify family members when a loved one has been involved in a serious motor vehicle accident. Called the "Next-of-Kin" registry, anyone holding a valid state-issued identification card, including a driver's license or permit, would have the option of including the names and contact information of up to two people in an electronic database maintained by the Motor Vehicle Commission. Law enforcement personnel then could access this information in cases where ...

Many people are unaware that business owners, landlords and other property owners owe them special duties of care while they are on the property. This includes the duty to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition, to warn of known dangers and to protect those who are legally on the property from certain harms. In some cases, these harms include criminal acts of others, such as physical assaults, sexual assaults and other intentional crimes. Duty to Protect Against Foreseeable Crimes In Georgia, a property owner of a business or apartment complex generally ...

The National Trust has reported that a rare and distinctive thatch moss, thought to have been on the verge of disappearing because of modern thatching techniques, has been discovered at ten new sites and mostly on buildings owned by the National Trust. Before the latest discoveries, thatch moss, Leptodontium gemmascens, was only known to exist at a handful of sites in southern England. Matthew Oates, Nature Conservation Adviser at the National Trust, said: "This survey shows that this endearing and harmless little moss has a real future and that it may be more widespread ...

npower has revealed the results of a nationwide study of Brits that shows many homeowners feel a boiler breaking down is the most annoying disruption to daily life. The research, conducted by npower hometeam 50, shows that 37% of homeowners feel that a boiler breakdown would be the biggest inconvenience to their lives. That's compared to 18% who would curse having their car clamped, 13% who would lose it over misplacing their keys and just 6% who would get in a jam over being held up in traffic. Even though boilers are often the most expensive item in the home, 59% ...

More than two thirds of people would stop and help a female driver whose car had broken down, but male drivers are far more likely to be left stranded - according to an extensive survey of attitudes carried out by leading car insurance provider Kwik Fit Insurance. Of nearly 13,000 people surveyed by Kwik Fit Insurance, 69% said they would be prepared to stop and help a stranded female driver, however, less than half (45%) would be willing to help a male driver in the same position. Worries about personal safety proved to be the number one deterrent for the 63% of ...

Fantazzle Fantasy Games enters the 2010 NBA season with its new lineup of fantasy basketball games. In addition to their Weekly and Playoff Fantasy Basketball Salary Cap games, Fantazzle proudly introduces the Daily Fantasy Basketball Challenge and the Season Long Fantasy Basketball Salary Cap games to its lineup of fantasy basketball games. The Daily Fantasy Basketball Challenge game is Fantazzle's first daily fantasy basketball game, and is played every day during the NBA season that there are at least three games on the NBA schedule. Fantasy users select a lineup ...

Wine Country Network, Inc, producers of the Denver International Wine Festival, have announced the list of chefs and restaurants that will compete at the festival's signature foodie event, The Taste of Elegance. As many as 16 Wine Savvy Chefs compete to 32 make custom paired epicurean delights with Gold medal winning wines from the Denver International Wine Competition. Denver' premier annual foodie event has been graced by Colorado master chefs, including Top Chef Season 5 winner Hosea Rosenberg, who returns this year as a celebrity judge and host. 2010 Participating ...

Gordon Atlantic Development Corporation is considering the location for a motion picture facility near the Champagne-Ardenne TGV train station in Bezannes, France located approximately 3 miles (5 km) from Reims. The motion picture facility will be named "Champagne Studios". Gordon Atlantic Development Corporation envisions a facility similar to that of Albuquerque Studios, Albuquerque, New Mexico, (Terminator Salvation, and The Book of Eli) with an initial 100,000 square feet (10,000 square metres) studio facility, and other buildings to follow in a phase-in plan. Gordon ...

Chronic depression is an adaptive, reparative neurobiological process gone wrong, say two University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers, positing in a new theory that the debilitating mental state originates from more ancient mechanisms used by the body to deal with physical injury, such as pain, tissue repair and convalescent behavior. In a paper published in the September online edition of Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review, Athina Markou, PhD, professor of psychiatry, and Karen Wager-Smith, a post-doctoral researcher, integrate evidence from ...

RENO, Nev. – Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii's big island has been erupting on its east rift since 1983. But, in March 2008, an additional eruption vent opened at the volcano's summit, resulting in about triple the amount of sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) emissions drifting to the local community of Ka'u, raising health concerns over the risks associated with exposure to "vog," as the islanders refer to this volcanic air pollution. A University of Nevada, Reno researcher seized the opportunity to build upon her previous research of health risks associated with exposure to vog. Bernadette ...

A husband and wife research team from Melbourne, Australia, have identified a protein that may be a key therapy for many inflammatory diseases, including those affecting premature babies. In the October edition of Nature Immunology, Drs Marcel and Claudia Nold, from the Monash Institute of Medical Research, describe how a protein, interleukin 37 (IL‐37), reacts when an inflammatory response is detected in the body. "Our bodies mount an inflammatory response to protect against an infection, such as bacteria or viruses. However, if uncontrolled, inflammation ...

International marine scientists say that a huge coral death which has struck Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean reefs over recent months has highlighted the urgency of controlling global carbon emissions. Many reefs are dead or dying across the Indian Ocean and into the Coral Triangle following a bleaching event that extends from the Seychelles in the west to Sulawesi and the Philippines in the east and include reefs in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and many sites in western and eastern Indonesia. "It is certainly the worst coral die-off we have seen ...

October 19, 2010 — University of Virginia chemical engineers Robert J. Davis and Matthew Neurock have uncovered the key features that control the high reactivity of gold nanoparticles in a process that oxidizes alcohols in water. The research is an important first step in unlocking the potential of using metal catalysts for developing biorenewable chemicals. The scientific discovery could one day serve as the foundation for creating a wide range of consumer products from biorenewable carbon feedstocks, as opposed to the petroleum-based chemicals currently being used as ...

Washington, D.C. (October 19, 2010) -- Chinese researchers, reporting in the Journal of Applied Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics, have described a new breakthrough in understanding the way electrons travel around quantum dots. This might lead to promising new fabrication methods of novel quantum devices. Guodong Li and colleagues at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing carried out an experiment using self-assembled quantum dots and a two-dimensional electron gas, and then fit the data to a model to find out the type of ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., (Oct. 20, 2010) -- Just as landscape photographs shot in low-angle light dramatically accentuate subtle swales and mounds, depositing metal vapors at glancing angles turns a rough surface into amazing nanostructures with a vast range of potential properties. For decades, vapor deposition has been a standard technique for creating modern microelectronic circuits. But nearly all of industry's efforts have been devoted to making structures as flat and smooth as possible. Rather than placing metal sources in the high-noon position used to make featureless ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., (Oct. 20, 2010) -- A team of researchers in North Carolina has discovered that lubricin, a synovial fluid glycoprotein, reduces wear to bone cartilage. This result, which has implications for the treatment of sufferers of osteoarthritis, will be presented today at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition, taking place this week at the Albuquerque Convention Center in New Mexico. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, the degenerative joint disease. It mostly affects cartilage, the slippery tissue that covers the ends of bones ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., (Oct. 20, 2010) -- The capture and storage of carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations, a strategy for minimizing the impacts of greenhouse gases on global warming, may currently be technologically feasible. But one key question that must be answered is the ability of subsurface materials to maintain their integrity in the presence of supercritical carbon dioxide -- a fluid state in which the gas is condensed at high temperature and pressure into a liquid. A research team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed tools in EMSL, a ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The JC polyomavirus doesn't strike very often, but it's a mean bug that preys on people with weakened immune systems, including people with AIDS, and almost always kills them. Now an international team of scientists at Brown University, the University of Tübingen in Germany, and Imperial College in London has found a potential Achilles Heel and painted a target on it: The virus must bind to a very specific sugar molecule dangling from the side of the brain cells it attacks. Like the rebel forces in the 1977 classic movie Star Wars, ...

The last two decades have seen tremendous progress in understanding the genetic basis of human brain disorders. Research developments in this area have revealed fundamental insights into the genes and molecular pathways that underlie neurological and psychiatric diseases. In a new series of review articles published by Cell Press in the October 21 issue of the journal Neuron, experts in the field discuss exciting recent advances in neurogenetics research and the potential implications for the treatment of these devastating disorders. Genetic discoveries have transformed ...

NEW YORK (Oct. 20, 2010) -- In a report published in the Oct. 20 issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center say animal and human data suggest gene therapy to the brain may be able to treat patients with major depression who do not respond to traditional drug treatment. The researchers hope to rapidly translate their findings into a human clinical trial using the same kind of gene therapy modality the investigators have pioneered to treat Parkinson's disease. A 45-patient randomized blinded phase II ...

(Boston) - Despite the promising results of the "Placement of Aortic Transcatheter Valves (PARTNER) trial," featured in the Oct. 21 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a cardiothoracic surgeon from Boston Medical Center (BMC) believes that surgical aortic-valve replacement should remain the standard treatment of aortic stenosis. In the accompanying editorial, the author argues that Transcatheter aortic-valve implantation (TAVI) should be reserved for patients at inordinately high risk who are not suitable candidates for surgery and who have decreased life expectancy. ...

The evolution of complex life is strictly dependent on mitochondria, the tiny power stations found in all complex cells, according to a new study by Dr Nick Lane, from UCL (University College London), and Dr William Martin, from the University of Dusseldorf. "The underlying principles are universal. Energy is vital, even in the realm of evolutionary inventions," said Dr Lane, UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment. "Even aliens will need mitochondria." For 70 years scientists have reasoned that evolution of nucleus was the key to complex life. Now, in ...

In a galaxy far away, an exceptionally massive black hole is traveling around a massive star in an unusually tight orbit. Also odd, the star is not as bright as it should be. Astronomers have puzzled over this X-ray binary system, named M33 X-7, but no one could explain all of its features. Now a Northwestern University research team has. The researchers have produced a model of the system's evolutionary history and formation that explains all of the system's observational characteristics: the tight orbit, the large masses of the star and black hole, the X-ray luminosity ...

New space research published this week (Thursday 21 October) in the journal Nature, has settled decades of scientific debate. Researchers from the University of California (UCLA) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have found the final link between electrons trapped in space and the glow of light from the upper atmosphere known as the diffuse aurora. The research will help us understand 'space weather', with benefits for the satellite, power grid and aviation industries, and how space storms affect the Earth's atmosphere from the top down. Scientists have long understood ...

A European team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has measured the distance to the most remote galaxy so far. By carefully analysing the very faint glow of the galaxy they have found that they are seeing it when the Universe was only about 600 million years old (a redshift of 8.6). These are the first confirmed observations of a galaxy whose light is clearing the opaque hydrogen fog that filled the cosmos at this early time. The results will be presented at an online press conference with the scientists on 19 October 2010, and will appear in the 21 October ...