The number of people smoking water pipes is rising dramatically throughout the world. A large proportion of new users are young, and many believe – contrary to facts – that water pipe smoking is less dangerous than cigarettes. Research into why people start smoking water pipes is under way at Uppsala University. Use of water pipes (also called "hookah" and "narghile") is on the rise, according to a number of studies conducted in Europe and North America. Anti-smoking campaigns typically focus on cigarettes and even, to some extent, snuff but rarely provide information ...

Tampa, FL (April 7, 2011) -- Deep brain stimulation, a surgical procedure to suppress faulty nerve signals, allowed 77 percent of patients to stop the medications used to treat their essential tremors within one year following the surgery, University of South Florida researchers report. "It's a significant finding demonstrating that patients see a lot of symptom improvement with this treatment option," said Andrew Resnick, a research assistant in the USF Health Department of Neurology. Resnick will present results of the limited retrospective study April 12, 2011, at ...

Paul Martin's American Bistro is now bringing their back-to-the-farm catering services to events at the City of Rocklin Sunset Center, a fantastic Placer County venue for weddings or special events of any size. The Sunset Center offers space from meeting rooms up through the Sunset Room which seats 96, and the Main Hall which can accommodate 320 for seated events. The Main Hall also features a stage for your ceremony, entertainment or head table. The Sunset Center offers neutral-colored cushioned chairs as well as banquet tables and 40-60" round tables to plan your event ...

A three-year follow-up study of patients in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial revealed that increased mortality among patients with advanced chronic hepatitis C who received long-term peginterferon therapy was attributed to non-liver related causes and occurred primarily in patients with bridging fibrosis. No pattern to this excess mortality was evident to researchers, but deaths were unrelated to the peginterferon treatment. Full findings are published in the April issue of Hepatology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American ...

Scientists from The University of Manchester are among a group of researchers investigating how genetic differences among individuals contribute to the way ecological communities form, interact and change over time. They say that understanding how individuals interact and form sustainable communities can help society to address issues including food security, prevention of disease and the coexistence between humans and nature in a crowded world. Biologists from the Universities of Manchester, York, and St Andrews have edited a special issue of Philosophical Transactions ...

WASHINGTON – Men who are abused by their female partners can suffer significant psychological trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts, according to two new papers published by the American Psychological Association. Although most reported domestic abuse is committed by men against women, a growing body of research has picked up on the prevalence and significance of domestic violence perpetrated against men, says research published in the April issue of Psychology of Men & Masculinity. "Given the stigma surrounding this issue and ...

Menlo Park, Calif.—April 7, 2011—BioParadox, Inc., a regenerative medicine company pioneering point-of-care biologic treatments for cardiovascular disease, today announced data supporting the use of VitaKine® Platelet Cell Therapy (PCT) as a promising treatment for heart attack patients. The results of a preclinical cardiac study were presented at the 2nd Annual Translational Regenerative Medicine Forum in Washington, D.C. Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP), a component of whole blood, has been shown to effectively treat sports-related injuries such as chronic tennis elbow in ...

Researchers in countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland study sand drift, but most of them are focusing on sand dunes along the coastline, not on the plains further inland. "Sand dunes are dynamic. For all we know, they may have been formed last year. But sand plaines are much older and in periods more stable. Thin organic layers present in sands are interesting, when trying to understand sand drift in pre-historic times," says botanist Lisbeth Prøsch-Danielsen at the University of Stavanger's Museum of Archaeology. Together with her colleague, geologist ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As recently as the 1990s, the Veterans Affairs health care system had a subpar reputation for quality, but two new studies of standard quality metrics, both led by Amal Trivedi, assistant professor of community health at Brown University and a physician at the Providence VA Medical Center, show that the system that cares for more than 5 million patients has improved markedly in the last decade. In one study, published online March 18 in the journal Medical Care, Trivedi found that the VA's care for seniors is consistently better than ...

Astronauts anticipate more trips to the moon and manned missions to Mars. But exposure to cosmic radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field could be detrimental to their arteries, according to a study by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers published April 6, 2011, online in the journal Radiation Research. Using an animal model, researchers assessed the affect of iron ion radiation commonly found in outer space to see if exposures promoted the development of atherosclerosis, as terrestrial sources of radiation are known to do. They observed that cosmic radiation ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- In a paper published today in the professional health care journal, Health Affairs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the University of Michigan Health System report that their model for collaborative health care quality improvement has measurably improved safety and quality in several clinical areas, and has saved millions in health care costs. Collaborative quality initiatives, the term given to the payer-hospital initiatives aimed at improving safety and quality of specific surgical procedures and clinical practices, have been shown to outpace ...

A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction. The index, developed by a team of Australian researchers from the University of Adelaide and James Cook University, is called SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction). The SAFE index builds on previous studies into the minimum population sizes needed by species to survive in the wild. It measures how close species are to their minimum viable population size. "SAFE is a leap forward in how we measure relative threat risk among species," says co-author ...

A research team, led by the University of Extremadura, has for the first time analysed the frequency of rainfall over the whole of the Iberian Peninsula from 1903 to 2003. The results show that the number of rainy days increased over the 20th Century, except in the area of the Gulf of Cádiz and in western Portugal. However, rainfall has become less and less intense, except in these two regions. The study, which used daily precipitation data from 27 stations in Spain and Portugal, provides the first long-term evaluation of changes to rainfall over the Iberian Peninsula. ...

Cities worldwide are failing to take necessary steps to protect residents from the likely impacts of climate change, even though billions of urban dwellers are vulnerable to heat waves, sea level rise and other changes associated with warming temperatures. A new examination of urban policies by Patricia Romero Lankao at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., in conjunction with an international research project on cities and climate change, warns that many of the world's fast-growing urban areas, especially in developing countries, will ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – DNA's role as the master blueprint of the cell means that even small sequence changes can have catastrophic consequences. For this reason, much of our understanding of cancer development comes from studying how cells copy DNA and repair sequence errors -- and how these processes can go wrong. Next week, a thematic program at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's annual meeting at the Experimental Biology 2011 conference in Washington, D.C., will bring together researchers from across the country to discuss recent developments ...

WASHINGTON (April 8, 2011) — The meeting Experimental Biology 2011 (EB 2011) begins April 9 and runs through April 13 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. This year's meeting is expected to attract some 13,000 scientists and exhibitors. The annual gathering is jointly sponsored by the American Association of Anatomists (AAA), American Physiological Society (APS), American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP), American Society for Nutrition (ASN), and American Society for ...

Golden Riviera Online Casino announced today that it is adopting ThunderStruck 2 as its main Free Spins game for players who play online casino games. This announcement came in light of recent surveys, which indicated that ThunderStruck 2 is one of the most popular and sought after Microgaming casino games. New players at the casino can enjoy 50 Free Spins on the casino with their first deposit. Emily Alessi, Casino Manager at Golden Riviera Online Casino, said, "We are thrilled at the prospect of having one of the most prominent games at our casino as our Free Spins ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – We've all watched it unfold on soap operas, medical dramas and films: A patient falls into a coma, and loved ones at the bedside try to peel away the veil by talking or reading aloud. Some of us have done it ourselves, desperately hoping for any hint of wakening or awareness. For Theresa Louise-Bender Pape, who studies patients with traumatic brain injury in various stages of coma and recovery, the "it can't hurt" reasoning just isn't good enough. She needs evidence. She wants answers. Pape thinks and talks fast, and her hectic schedule keeps ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – Moms-to-be long have been told by their doctors and baby-related books and websites that staying fit during pregnancy is good for both mother and child. When it was reported a couple of years back that exercising strengthens a fetus' heart control, many pregnant women took heed and hit the ground running, literally. Some signed up for prenatal yoga classes; others found new ways to incorporate low-impact aerobic activities into their daily lives. But, for those pregnant women out there who might not be feeling all that motivated, or anything ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – What do blinking fireflies, the cellular power plants that are human mitochondria, parasitic worms in sub-Saharan Africa and synthetic sugars have in common? At first glance, not a lot; but, after a good hard look, they represent bright threads in the tapestry of knowledge for those trying to patch the gaps between chemical biology, technology, therapies and cures. In the coming days, as part of the Experimental Biology 2011 conference in Washington, D.C., two dozen researchers will go public about their ongoing work aimed at improving our ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – Timing is everything. That's especially true when it comes to the activation of enzymes created by the pancreas to break down food. When the timing is right, those enzymes are activated only when they reach the gut, where they get to work releasing and distributing nutrients that we need to survive. If the timing is wrong and the enzymes are activated too soon, they break down the pancreas itself, which is painful and sometimes fatal. Fortunately, most of the time the body is a master timekeeper and has a game plan for what to do if a signaling ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 -- Dozens of researchers in the coming days will lay out what's around the corner in the biochemical battle of the bulge as part of the Experimental Biology 2011 conference in Washington, D.C. The three-day program on obesity, sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's minority affairs committee, will showcase the work of scientists from all over the world who have their sights set on reversing the epidemic by laying bare and manipulating, to mankind's advantage, its molecular underpinnings. Nine 25-minute ...

Many people who start their own successful companies are intelligent, have field experience and an entrepreneur spirit to get things done. However, when it comes to accounting, and in particular payroll software, they often stumble. That's why Halfpricesoft co-founder Dr Ge went to work creating ezPaycheck, and its latest version, ezPaycheck 2011 payroll software for California users. "For more than ten years I was a programmer and consultant," says Dr Ge. "During that time I discovered many small business owners often had one thing in common, regardless of their industry: ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 – Metabolism encompasses the biochemical reactions that sustain life and is usually thought of as two complementary systems: one that breaks down nutrients to generate energy and another that harnesses this energy to produce the building blocks cells need to thrive. Considering the fundamental importance of this chemical give-and-take, it's not surprising that metabolic dysfunctions can lead to serious diseases. Next week, experts on metabolism will convene for a thematic program, at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's ...

New technology is revolutionizing the precise recording of history at an ancient, lost city, bucking a tradition that has been in place for centuries. University of Cincinnati researchers will present "The Paperless Project: The Use of iPads in the Excavations at Pompeii" at the 39th annual international conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA). The conference takes place April 12-16 in Beijing, China. The iPad research experiment, led by Steven Ellis, UC assistant professor of classics, and John Wallrodt, a senior research associate ...