Plackers, makers of the first disposable dental flosser, expands its line of family-friendly oral care products with Brush & Learn by Plackers Kids, a series of unique musical toothbrushes for children. Utilizing original melodies and upbeat, catchy lyrics, each toothbrush plays an entertaining, educational song that encourages healthy dental care habits by making brushing fun for children. Parents can choose from four Brush & Learn toothbrushes with songs that help teach children their ABCs, 123s, farm animal sounds, and proper teeth brushing techniques. Tooth decay ...

Purdue's goals will be to specialize in the research, development and use of virtual simulations for educational, training and business applications. Powersynch, LLC, the parent company for SpotON3D began development of their grid systems in November of 2008. With the help of a team of dedicated programmers, web developers, modelers and grid experts, they have succeeded in creating an exciting new experience that includes answers to many of the complex problems seen with their contemporaries. With a ten-year vision for the development of the 3D Web, SpotON3D's secure ...

CiCi's Pizza, home of the $4.99 endless pizza, pasta, salad and dessert buffet, announces today the addition of Deb Chappell as Director of Real Estate Services and Support. A 25-year veteran, Chappell led expansion efforts for big names like Chili's Grill & Bar, Romano's Macaroni Grill and BJ's Restaurants. At CiCi's Pizza, Chappell is tasked with building on CiCi's diversity in franchising and continued growth. The Texas-based company plans to add 500 units in the next eight to 10 years and is actively recruiting franchise partners. Chappell brings decades of experience ...

Southern Petroleum Laboratories, Inc. announces that it has reached an agreement to sell the assets of its environmental laboratory division to Accutest Laboratories, marking a new phase for the sixty-six year old company that was founded in the petroleum industry. SPL has long been a leader in the petroleum and environmental testing industry, with its largest laboratory facilities in Traverse City, Michigan, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas. But in light of the economic downturn, SPL had been evaluating its objectives and the company's future direction. "It ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The season in which babies are born can have a dramatic and persistent effect on how their biological clocks function. That is the conclusion of a new study published online on Dec. 5 by the journal Nature Neuroscience. The experiment provides the first evidence for seasonal imprinting of biological clocks in mammals and was conducted by Professor of Biological Sciences Douglas McMahon, graduate student Chris Ciarleglio, post-doctoral fellow Karen Gamble and two undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University. The imprinting effect, which was found ...

VIDEO: Saumil Gandhi, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, discusses his new research which finds that, contrary to what researchers have assumed, genes that work with other genes... Click here for more information. December 5, 2010 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have made an unexpected finding about the method by which certain genes are activated. Contrary to what researchers ...

Wellcome Trust scientists have shown for the first time that exactly how we see our environment depends on the size of the visual part of our brain. We are all familiar with the idea that our thoughts and emotions differ from one person to another, but most people assume that how we perceive the visual world is usually very similar from person to person. However, the primary visual cortex – the area at the back of the brain responsible for processing what we see in the world around us – is known to differ in size by up to three times from one individual to the next. Now, ...

Climate change is causing wildfires to burn more fiercely, pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study to be published in Nature Geosciences this week. This is the first study to reveal that fires in the Alaskan interior - an area spanning 18.5 million hectares - have become more severe in the past 10 years, and have released much more carbon into the atmosphere than was stored by the region's forests over the same period. "When most people think of wildfires, they think about trees burning, but most of what fuels ...

For years, geologists have argued about the processes that formed steep inner gorges in the broad glacial valleys of the Swiss Alps. The U-shaped valleys were created by slow-moving glaciers that behaved something like road graders, eroding the bedrock over hundreds or thousands of years. When the glaciers receded, rivers carved V-shaped notches, or inner gorges, into the floors of the glacial valleys. But scientists disagreed about whether those notches were erased by subsequent glaciers and then formed all over again as the second round of glaciers receded. New ...

Damage caused by multiple sclerosis could be reversed by activating stem cells that can repair injury in the central nervous system, a study has shown. Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh have identified a mechanism essential for regenerating insulating layers – known as myelin sheaths – that protect nerve fibres in the brain. In additional studies in rodents, they showed how this mechanism can be exploited to make the brain's own stem cells better able to regenerate new myelin. In multiple sclerosis, loss of myelin leads to the nerve fibres ...

Sugar molecules coat every cell in our bodies and play critical roles in development and disease, yet the components of these "glycans" have been difficult for scientists to study, because of their complexity. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have adapted gene chip microarray technology to the study of glycans, with an approach they call "shotgun glycomics." The Emory team has developed a new chemical method for attaching a fluorescent dye to glycans purified from cells. The individual glycans are separated into tiny spots fixed to glass slides. The ...

On November 19, Jason Martin returned to the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the first time since he nearly died there during last year's H1N1 flu pandemic. The tall and burly Warren County, TN, ambulance worker – a 30-year-old, father of three young children – broke down and hugged some of the nurses he recognized. "I got sick on September 12 and didn't come out of it for the next 20 days. I am just so grateful I came through," Martin said, wiping his eyes. Martin was among the first wave of critically ill middle Tennesseans, ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 6, 2010 – Four years after the LouseBuster prototype made headlines when research showed the chemical-free, warm-air device wiped out head lice on children, a new study reveals that a revamped, government-cleared model is highly effective. "For a louse, it's like sticking your head out a window at 100 miles an hour; they're going to get dried out," says University of Utah biology Professor Dale Clayton, senior author of the study and a founder of Larada Sciences, a university spinoff company that sells or leases the LouseBuster to schools, ...

For the first time, researchers have established a clear link between accepting family attitudes and behaviors towards their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and significantly decreased risk and better overall health in adulthood. The study shows that specific parental and caregiver behaviors -- such as advocating for their children when they are mistreated because of their LGBT identity or supporting their gender expression -- protect against depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in early adulthood. In addition, LGBT ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is excluding significant research findings about human threats to protected species, researchers argue, even when the law governing the agency's actions requires the use of all relevant data in determining whether species need protection from extinction. A group of scientists, led by Jeremy Bruskotter of Ohio State University, argue in the December issue of the journal BioScience that research about societal values should be considered along with biological and ecological data in listing decisions. The Endangered Species ...

Nonindigenous insects and pathogens continue to become established in US forests with regularity despite regulations intended to prevent this, according to a study published in the December 2010 issue of BioScience. The study, by a team led by Juliann E. Aukema of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California, found that nonindigenous insects are being newly detected in US forests at a rate of about 2.5 per year, and high-impact insects and pathogens that cause significant effects in forests, including tree death, are being newly ...

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adolescents are about 40 percent more likely than other teens to be punished by school authorities, police and the courts, according to a study by Yale University researchers. Published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pediatrics, the study is the first to document excessive punishment of LGB youth nationwide. "We found that virtually all types of punishment—including school expulsions, arrests, juvenile convictions, adult convictions and especially police stops—were more frequently meted out to LGB youth," said lead author Kathryn ...

Le Meridien Amman, a member of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, has dropped the curtain on its first international art and creativity motivation competition; Le Meridien's Creative Canvas. The Creative Canvas, a signature area in the heart of house, is designed to serve as a space to promote and display creativity among Le Meridien associates and their peers, allowing them to exhibit their own creative realizations, such as drawing, painting, photography, music, design, sculpture, cuisine, and coffee. Giuseppe Ressa, General Manager of Le Meridien Amman commented on ...

Direct Response (DRTV) advertising is still the single most effective way to get a product or service out to the masses quickly, create instant branding, and make money. And Stardust Broadcasting, with 23 years of TV media experience is offering DRTV advertisers a special introductory rate for The SoundTrack Channel to affordably promote their products to almost 6 million households at pennies per city aired. The Soundtrack Channel is the new channel for cable, satellite and IPTV, featuring movie music soundtracks, entertainment news and sneak peaks at all the latest ...

A network more powerful than the Internet, while perhaps inconceivable right now, is just one of many potentially life-changing applications for wireless sensor networks (WSN) highlighted in a special November update issue about Sensor Networks and Applications in Proceedings of the IEEE, the world's most highly-cited general interest journal in electrical engineering and computer science since 1913. Published by the IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association, additional topics of this Proceedings issue include a look at forward-thinking healthcare ...

Come listen in at RRRadio's newest show, RFK: Stories for Children as the hosts (VS Grenier, D.M. Cunningham and Tiffany Strelitz Haber) chat with J.D. Holiday about her newest book "The Great Snowball Escapade," and what it has been like doing the World of Ink Author/Book Virtual Tour. J.D. Holiday will also be sharing writing tips, trials and tribulations of the writer's life. The show will be live at 11am MST (10am PST, Noon Central and 1pm EST). You can tune in at the RRRadio's site at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rrradio or you can listen/call in at (646) 595-4478. In ...

Yampu Tours, the specialist travel company to Latin America and abroad, unveiled a special holiday discount today. If booked by December 31, the good cheer offer adds up to a gift of 12.5 percent in travel package savings. A first-class travel company, Yampu offers tours for specialized travel to Latin America and a growing list of other destinations that will be announced in the New Year. Tours are customizable and can include sightseeing, rainforest hiking, adventure excursions, and the unique desires of the customer. All tours are prepared with the best accommodations, ...

On February 12, 2011, The Kennedy Art Initiative (KAI), The Phoenix PR, and Vivant Art Gallery will be hosting a Bachelor's Auction to celebrate a month filled with love. The Glass Slipper: 2011 Bachelor's Auction will be taking place from 7pm until 10 pm at the pristine Vivant Art Gallery on 60 North 2nd Street in the Olde City section of Philadelphia. These will not be your ordinary bachelors. Guests will have the opportunity to mix and mingle with local celebrities, elite singles and bachelors from all backgrounds and professions. There will be someone for every ...

will be collecting unwrapped toys that will go to several local charities for distribution to families in need. As part of the event, both members as well as the general public are invited to visit the DirectBuy of Barrie location from 1:00pm to 5:00pm to donate a toy that will most certainly put a smile on the face of a deserving child this holiday season. "Christmas is a time of giving, and what better way to give than to help a family in need by putting a present under the tree for a child who wouldn't otherwise receive one," said Christine Demarsh, owner of DirectBuy ...

'Tis the season for holiday stress. From last minute shopping, to getting less sleep, to making ends meet financially, to consuming more sweets and drinks at holiday get-togethers. Americans are faced with many more physical and emotional pressures during the holidays. Recent research studies and surveys in the areas of sleep, eating, and finances are shedding some light on actions one can take to lessen the stress load. The market research firm Harris Interactive recently conducted a "Holiday Stress Index" study. The poll was based on a nationwide sample of 2,173 adults ...