Bruegger's Enterprises, Inc. (BEI) announced today continued sales growth during the fourth quarter ending December 28, 2010. The 437-unit restaurant operator recognized sales of $63.2 million, a 3.6 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2009. Total system sales for the year were $254.5 million, a 2.8% increase over 2009. Bruegger's namesake brand added 16 franchise, corporate and co-branded bakeries during the past year. Same store sales were up by 4.3 percent on company units and 3.1 percent system-wide for the 4th quarter. Bruegger's expects continued growth ...

The EZ-Wall System, created by the thin brick installation experts from American Brick Company (Ambrico) has become even easier to master, thanks to the company's recently developed training materials created exclusively for its customers. Outlining the specific steps and materials required for installation, the E-Z Wall System installation manual makes it easy to complete a thin brick installation on time and within budget. Headquartered in Warren,MI the Ambrico showroom and manufacturing plant has been a popular favorite for contractors and builders throughout the ...

It took years for the market to recover but recover it did. Scarred but intact the banking community tightened its internal regulations and the French Government established legislation to protect the purchaser from over indebtedness holding the banks responsible. The result is that while the rest of the world chose the easy money route into sub prime lending, the French banks maintained their control over the French lending market. The result is a relatively stable property based economy, with little devaluation at the lower and middle market price levels for properties ...

PHILADELPHIA — An interdisciplinary group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has, for the first time, identified the neurological and cellular signaling mechanisms that contribute to satiety — the sensation of feeling full — and the subsequent body-weight loss produced by drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes. More comprehensive knowledge of these mechanisms could form the basis for anti-obesity medications. The group was led by Matthew Hayes of the School of Medicine's Psychiatry Department, Harvey Grill of the Psychology Department in the School of Arts ...

With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that have occurred just five times during the past 540 million years. Each of these "Big Five" saw three-quarters or more of all animal species go extinct. In results of a study published in this week's issue of journal Nature, researchers report on an assessment of where mammals and other species stand today in terms of possible extinction compared with the past 540 million years. They find cause for hope--and alarm. "If ...

ATLANTA -- An enzyme viewed as an executioner, because it can push cells to commit suicide, may actually short circuit a second form of cell death, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered. The finding could shift drug discovery efforts, by leading scientists to rethink how proposed anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory drugs that target the enzyme, called caspase 8, are supposed to work. The results are described in this week's Nature. Caspase 8 has been described as "the killer you can't live without." This enzyme plays a key role in apoptosis, ...

Sea-ice algae – the important first rung of the food web each spring in places like the Arctic Ocean – can engineer ice to its advantage, according to the first published findings about this ability. The same gel-like mucus secreted by sea-ice algae as a kind of antifreeze against temperatures well below minus 10 C is also allowing algae to sculpt microscopic channels and pores in ice that are hospitable to itself and other microorganisms. Altering ice to their benefit should help sea-ice algae adapt to a warming world, which is good news for hungry fish and shellfish ...

Fraser Yachts is pleased to announce the following charters available for Mediterranean yacht charter and Caribbean yacht charter for 2011/12. M/Y Pamela V yacht is a luxurious 45.9m Hakvoort built yacht, available for yacht charter in the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands. During the high season, it will be available for $235,000 per week and in the low season will go down to $220,000. Currently located in the Caribbean, this luxury yacht is due to be completed later this year. With the ability to sleep 8 guests in 4 staterooms, and 10 crew members, you can expect ...

Researchers have synthesized the vast literature on cancer to produce a next-generation view of the features that are shared amongst all cancer cells. These hallmarks of the disease provide a comprehensive and cohesive foundation for the field that will influence biomedical researchers in their quest for new cancer treatments. The review article by Douglas Hanahan of École Polytechnique Fédérale in Switzerland and Robert Weinberg of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research appears in the March 4th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication. The new article updates ...

Low physical activity increases kidney transplant patients' likelihood of dying early, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The results suggest that patients need to exercise to fend off an early death. Inactive people in general face increased risks of developing cardiovascular disease and of dying prematurely. Individuals with chronic kidney disease—particularly those on dialysis—tend to get little exercise, but most increase their activity levels modestly after receiving a kidney transplant. ...

Evidence for a diversified sea-based economy among North American inhabitants dating from 12,200 to 11,400 years ago is emerging from three sites on California's Channel Islands. Reporting in the March 4 issue of Science, a 15-member team led by University of Oregon and Smithsonian Institution scholars describes the discovery of scores of stemmed projectile points and crescents dating to that time period. The artifacts are associated with the remains of shellfish, seals, geese, cormorants and fish. Funded primarily by grants from the National Science Foundation, the ...

Old Westbury, New York (Mar. 3, 2011) – Fossil records verify a long-standing theory that horses evolved through natural selection, according to groundbreaking research by two anatomy professors at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM) of New York Institute of Technology. Working with colleagues from Massachusetts and Spain, Matthew Mihlbachler, Ph.D., and Nikos Solounias, Ph.D. arrived at the conclusion after examining the teeth of 6,500 fossil horses representing 222 different populations of more than 70 extinct horse species. The records, spanning the past ...

Optics researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol have developed an iPad application for accurate, easy and intuitive use of optical tweezers. Optical tweezers, used to manipulate tiny particles through the use of highly focused laser beams, are the tool at the heart of much molecular biology – helping us to experiment with and better understand the microscopic processes of organisms. Research published today, Friday 4 March 2011, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Optics, shows how a team of researchers has overcome the limitations of computer mouse and ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that PARIS — the protein — facilitates the most common form of Parkinson's disease (PD), which affects about 1 million older Americans. The findings of their study, published March 4 in Cell, could lead to important new targets for treatment. Previous research has shown that a protein dubbed parkin protects brain cells by "tagging" certain toxic elements for natural destruction. Mutations in the parkin gene cause rare forms of PD that run in families, but its role remained unclear in sporadic late-onset PD, the prevalence of which ...

Star-shaped cells in our brains called astrocytes were once considered little more than structures to fill the gaps between all-important neurons. But more recent evidence has emerged to reveal that those astrocytes play more than a supporting role; they are involved in information processing and signal transmission and they help to regulate the shapes of our neurons and their connections to one another. Now, researchers reporting in the March 4th Cell, a Cell Press publication, have found that astrocytes are also essential for making long-term memories. When they don't ...

Scientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation, providing the first evidence that dust particles like this one experienced wildly varying environments during the planet-forming years of our solar system. The researchers interpret these findings as evidence that dust grains traveled over large distances as the swirling protoplanetary nebula condensed into planets. The single dust grain they studied appears to have formed in the hot ...

If you tend to have trouble picking up the latest dance moves or learning to play a new piano piece, there might be an explanation. A new study published online on March 3rd in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows that people who are fast to learn a simple sequence of finger motions are also those whose brains show large changes in a particular chemical messenger following electrical stimulation. That chemical messenger, known as GABA, is important for the plasticity of the motor cortex, a brain region involved in planning, control, and execution of voluntary ...

A new study finds that a brain rhythm considered the hallmark of wakefulness not only persists inconspicuously during sleep but also signifies an individual's vulnerability to disturbance by the outside world. In their report in the March 3 PLoS One, the team from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Sleep Medicine uses computerized EEG signal processing to detect subtle fluctuations in the alpha rhythm during sleep and shows that greater alpha intensity is associated with increased sleep fragility. The findings could lead to more precise approaches to ...

There have been no shortages of horrific natural disasters splashing across headlines in the last year: the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile; the Tsunami in the Philippines; and the volcano eruption in Indonesia--to name just a few. The poly tarps have come to the rescue over and over again in these situations, providing a cheap yet durable material with which to construct a roof or otherwise assist in the process of recovering and rebuilding from natural disaster born tragedy. In the event of a natural disaster, as people are forced out of their homes or lose ...

How do organs "know" when to stop growing? The answer could be useful in regenerative medicine, and also in cancer – where these "stop growing" signals either aren't issued or aren't heeded. Researchers in the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston have now found a regulator of gene activity that tells epidermal stem cells when it's time to grow more skin, as well as a "crowd control" molecule that can sense cell crowding and turn the growth off. The work, in mice and in human cancer cells, provides clues to new therapeutic strategies for cancer, particularly ...

Not all racial and ethnic groups have equal access to kidney transplantation, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results indicate that the reasons for these disparities are varied and that more focused efforts are needed to address them. For most individuals who develop kidney failure or end-stage renal disease, kidney transplantation is the best treatment option. Unfortunately, certain racial and ethnic groups are less likely to receive kidney transplants than others. Despite the increasing ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Neurons have been derived from the skin of a woman with a genetic form of Parkinson's disease and have been shown to replicate some key features of the condition in a dish, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The scientists hope to use the neurons to learn more about the disorder and to test possible treatments. Such a tool is critical because there are no good animal models for Parkinson's disease. It also validates the use of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, to model various diseases. "Now that we can see that ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A short-term treatment with three immune-dampening drugs allowed human embryonic stem cells to survive and thrive in mice, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Without such treatment, the animals' immune systems quickly hunt down and destroy the transplanted cells. The finding is important because it may allow humans to accept transplanted stem cells intended to treat disease or injury without requiring the ongoing use of powerful immunosuppressant medications. Just as it does with transplanted organs, the human body ...

Plants are able to protect themselves from most bacteria, but some bacteria are able to breach their defences. In research to be published in Science on Friday, scientists have identified the genes used by some strains of the bacterium Pseudomonas to overwhelm defensive natural products produced by plants of the mustard family, or crucifers. "Microbes only become pathogens when they find a way to infect a host and overwhelm the host defences," said lead author Dr Jun Fan from the John Innes Centre on the Norwich Research Park. "Our findings answer some important questions ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Scientific societies representing 40,000 researchers and clinicians are asking that federal regulators tap a broader range of expertise when evaluating the risks of chemicals to which Americans are being increasingly exposed. Writing in a letter in the journal Science, eight societies from the fields of genetics, reproductive medicine, endocrinology, developmental biology and others note that some 12,000 new substances are being registered with the American Chemical Society daily. Few make it into the environment, but the top federal regulators, the U.S. ...