PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — What makes a man? His clothes? His car? His choice of scotch? The real answer, says Brown University biologist Erica Larschan, is the newly understood activity of a protein complex that, like a genetic power tool, gives enzymes on the X-chromosome an extra boost to increase gene expression. The process is described in the March 3, 2011, issue of the journal Nature. Women have two X-chromosomes in their genomes while males have an X and a Y. Gender is defined by that difference, but for men to live, the genetic imbalance must be remedied. ...

The recent sentencing of a 28-year-old Gaston County man for multiple sex offenses, including second-degree sex offense of a child and one count of indecent liberties with a child, reveals the severe consequences that a conviction or guilty plea can bring. Marcus Stephen Archer pleaded guilty to two of six counts and faces up to ten years in prison as well as lifetime registration as a sex offender. He will also be required to submit to satellite monitoring after his release from prison. Archer admits not remembering the events due to heavy drug use during the time the ...

With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, from frogs and fish to tigers, some scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that occurred only five times before during the past 540 million years. Each of these 'Big Five' saw three-quarters or more of all animal species go extinct. In a study to be published in the March 3 issue of the journal Nature, University of California, Berkeley, paleobiologists assess where mammals and other species stand today in terms of possible extinction, compared with the past 540 ...

Thousands, if not millions of people worldwide, use Tylenol or Tylenol-related products with the active ingredient Acetaminophen each week. The over-the-counter drug is labelled as an effective treatment method to reduce a fever and relieve minor aches and pains. While it is considered safe by medical professionals in some circles, new information about the risks of prolonged use, overuse and even common use have raised red flags for medical professionals. It is well-known that excessive use of Acetaminophen (may be abbreviated as APAP on drug labels), such as an accidental ...

Physicists and mathematicians from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain are putting paid to the theory that two languages cannot co-exist in one society. Analysing the pattern of populations speaking Castilian, the most common language spoken in Spain, and Galician, a language spoken in Galicia, the North West autonomous community of Spain, the researchers have used mathematical models to show that levels of bilingualism in a stable population can lead to the steady co-existence of two languages. The research, published today, Thursday 3 March 2011, in ...

(March 2, 2011—Toronto, ON and Helsinki, Finland) Dr. Andras Nagy's laboratory at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and Dr. Timo Otonkoski's laboratory at Biomedicum Stem Cell Center (University of Helsinki), as well as collaborators in Europe and Canada have identified genetic abnormalities associated with reprogramming adult cells to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The findings give researchers new insights into the reprogramming process, and will help make future applications of stem cell creation and subsequent use safer. The study ...

Atlanta SEO company Cardinal Web Solutions takes a proactive approach in its client's SEO and Internet marketing campaigns. While the recent announcement from Google of an updated search engine algorithm has shaken up the SEO industry, Cardinal Web Solutions sees these changes as a reinforcement of the company's focus on quality. Cardinal Web Solutions is a leading Atlanta SEO company that provides search engine optimization and internet marketing. In February, Matt Cutts of Google described on the company's blog what he called a "pretty big algorithmic improvement" ...

Ordinary human cells reprogrammed as induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) may ultimately revolutionize personalized medicine by creating new and diverse therapies unique to individual patients. But important and unanswered questions have persisted about the safety of these cells, in particular whether their genetic material is altered during the reprogramming process. A new study – published in the March 3 issue of the journal Nature and led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego in collaboration with other leading stem cell research groups – finds ...

Boston, MA – A new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers shows that adults who regularly take ibuprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), have about one-third less risk of developing Parkinson's disease than non-users. "There is no cure for Parkinson's disease, so the possibility that ibuprofen, an existing and relatively non-toxic drug, could help protect against the disease is captivating," said senior author Alberto Ascherio, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at HSPH. The study will be published online March 2, 2011, in ...

Climate researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) expand a prevalent theory regarding the development of ice ages. In the current issue of the journal Nature three physicists from AWI's working group "Dynamics of the Palaeoclimate" present new calculations on the connection between natural insolation and long-term changes in global climate activity. Up to now the presumption was that temperature fluctuations in Antarctica, which have been reconstructed for the last million years on the basis of ice cores, ...

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Newberry SC Hotel offers convenient lodging to guests attending the Irish Fling Celebration in downtown Newberry. The event will celebrate St. Patrick's Day and includes live entertainment at three locations. The annual Newberry Irish Fling will take place on March 18, 2011. "The Newberry Irish Fling is a popular annual event our area residents and guests enjoy each year. As an added perk, there is no charge to attend Irish Fling," explains Ambria Lanteigne, General Manager at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Newberry. Lanteigne continues ...

Women who experience depression and anxiety after a miscarriage can continue to experience these symptoms even if they subsequently go on to have a healthy child. The findings, based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) at the University of Bristol and published online today by the British Journal of Psychiatry, show no evidence that mental health problems associated with miscarriage or stillbirth end with the birth of a healthy baby. Instead, women may continue to experience symptoms for several years after the postnatal period. The researchers ...

Pregnant women who are unaware that they have HIV miss the chance for drug treatment that can benefit not only their own health, but could also prevent them from transmitting the virus to their infants. When HIV is not diagnosed until women go into labor, their infants are usually treated soon after birth with the anti HIV drug zidovudine (ZDV), to prevent the infants from becoming infected with the virus. Now, a National Institutes of Health study has found that adding one or two drugs to the standard ZDV treatment can reduce the chances by more than 50 percent that ...

Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland-College Park, have for the first time caused a gas of atoms to exhibit an important quantum phenomenon known as spin-orbit coupling. Their technique opens new possibilities for studying and better understanding fundamental physics and has potential applications to quantum computing, next-generation "spintronics" devices and even "atomtronic" devices built from ultracold atoms. In the researchers' demonstration of ...

Four new Brazilian species in the genus Ophiocordyceps have been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. The fungi, named by Dr. Harry Evans and Dr. David Hughes, belong to a group of "zombifying" fungi that infect ants and then manipulate their behavior, eventually killing the ants after securing a prime location for spore dispersal. These results appear in a paper by Evans et al. entitled Hidden Diversity Behind the Zombie-Ant Fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis: Four New Species Described from Carpenter Ants in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This paper is the first to validly ...

Hampton Inn & Suites Scottsboro Hotel offers nearby lodging to golfers and guests attending the Spring-Fling National Jr. College Golf Tournament at Goose Pond Colony Golf. The tournament will showcase the best young golfers from across the country. The event will take place March 17 - 19, 2011 at Colony Course. Goose Pond Colony is a municipally owned resort on Lake Guntersville offering two beautiful 18-hole golf courses. The Colony Course was rated 4 stars by Golf Digest in 2008-09. There are views of the lake from every hole on the course. The Par 72 course plays ...

Work led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists identified how cells flip a switch between cell survival and cell death that involves a protein called FLIP. The findings solve a riddle that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade regarding the dual nature of caspase-8, an enzyme intimately linked to the cell's suicide pathway but also essential for cell survival during embryonic development and the immune response. Researchers identified FLIP and the silencing of another enzyme, named RIPK3, as playing pivotal roles. The study was published in the ...

The brightness of the nightly sky glow over major cities has been shown to depend strongly on cloud cover. In natural environments, clouds make the night sky darker by blocking the light of the stars but around urban centers, this effect is completely reversed, according to a new study by a group of physicists and ecologists at the Free University of Berlin (FU) and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). "We found that overcast skies were almost three times brighter than clear at our rural location, and ten times as bright within the city ...

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Atlanta Perimeter Hotel (North) by Perimeter Mall and Atlanta Perimeter Center, offers nearby accommodations to fans attending the 2011 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, GA. The tournament will be held from Thursday, March 10 -13, 2011. This year's winner will be awarded the SEC conference's automatic bid to the 2011 NCAA Tournament which will follow the 2011 SEC Basketball tournament. The SEC Basketball Tournament is a premier event in college sports. All Southeastern Conference schools participate ...

In times of uncertainty employers should engage more openly with their staff and drop the jargon to improve communication and allow feedback, according to a paper in this month's International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management. D. Keith Denton of the Department of Management, at Missouri State University, in Springfield, suggests that it is essential for companies that wish to survive economic strife to create an atmosphere of trust in these untrusting times. He says that, "Companies with high-trust levels give employees unvarnished information about company's ...

Jerusalem, March 1, 2011 – A pathway whereby bacteria communicate with each other has been discovered by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The discovery has important implications for efforts to cope with the spread of harmful bacteria in the body. Bacteria are known to communicate in nature primarily via the secretion and receipt of extracellular signalling molecules, said Prof. Sigal Ben-Yehuda of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC) at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, head of the research team on the phenomenon, whose ...

Researchers have long promoted biofuels produced from crop biomass as an environmentally sustainable source of renewable energy. A recent study questions whether the potential climate benefit of sugarcane ethanol is diminished when emissions from land use management are considered. Scientists examined the sugarcane ethanol production systems to identify sources of greenhouse gas emissions. They found that land use change, fertilization, residue burning, and tillage had the largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions. According to Dr. Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, head of the ...

The Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport Hotel (North I-85) offers nearby accommodations travelers planning to visit the High Museum of Art in midtown Atlanta. High Museum of Art is one of the southeast's leading art museums and is a division of the Woodruff Art Center, which also includes the Alliance Theater and the 14th Street Playhouse. The Museum has more than 12,000 pieces in its permanent collection. Other collections currently on exhibition include: - Toulouse-Lautrec (The Stein Collection), now through May 1, 2011 - Henri Cartier-Bresson (The Modern Century), ...

As part of the study, which will follow 40,000 UK households over a number of years more than 2,000 young people aged between 10 to 15 years have been asked how satisfied they are with their lives. The findings indicate there is little difference between the average life satisfaction score of those children living in the household with the bottom fifth income and those children living in households in the top fifth income bracket. Dr Gundi Knies a researcher based at ISER said: "Despite the seemingly high levels of happiness amongst young people in the UK, our children's ...

Immunological research at the University of Haifa, Israel, has made a new breakthrough, revealing a critical component in the "decision-making" process of white blood cells that play a role in the healing process from bacterial inflammation. "The process that we have discovered can assist in the development of drugs that are based on the natural processes that take place in the human body, unlike most of the existing drugs that attempt to curb inflammation by artificial means," explains Dr. Amiram Ariel of the Department of Biology at the University of Haifa, who headed ...