In routine gall bladder surgery, the surgeon mistakenly punctures the patient's aorta, a major artery supplying oxygen-rich blood to the body. The patient is 20-year-old Airman Colton Reid. His fiance watches as Reid's feet turn blue from lack of blood flow; yet there are more than eight hours of delay before Reid is transferred from the teaching hospital at Travis Air Force Base to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where Reid can get adequate treatment. Because of the lack of blood flow from the punctured aorta, and the delay, doctors at UC Davis are ultimately forced ...

Hydraulic fracturing, also commonly called hydrofracking or fracking, is the process of drilling into shale and then turning the drill horizontally to tap pockets of natural gas. The Post-Standard says Ron Bishop, a chemistry professor at the State University College at Oneonta, explains that the procedure involves pumping in thick chemical slurry to keep the drill bit clear of debris. Concrete seals the well and large amounts of water -- potentially millions of gallons -- are pumped in under pressure to hydrofracture the shale and release natural gas. The polluted water ...

When it comes to the idea of overtime pay, most think that only the laborer, manufacturer or other "blue collar" worker is eligible to receive overtime, not the professional, executive, supervisor or manager. In today's workplace, however, the old blue collar/white collar doesn't' always apply. A worker can be entitled to overtime pay regardless of the color of his or her collar. Employees eligible to receive overtime pay are generally referred to as "nonexempt." Other employees, who are exempted from federal and state overtime laws in certain instances, are called "exempt ...

Last year saw a record number of prescription and over-the-counter drug recalls, 1,472 different types in all. That number is four times the number of drugs recalled in 2008. While it is difficult to attribute the increase in defective and dangerous drugs to a single reason, the overseas manufacture of medications, the increase in prescription drug use and faulty labeling all contribute to the dramatic rise in recalls. Based on the recalls of more than 130 million bottles of over-the-counter children's medications like Tylenol and Motrin, the trend has continued in 2010. A ...

Prudential has announced that, at a time when rates on conventional annuities have been falling, Prudential's innovative Income Choice Annuity is bucking the trend with starting incomes being increased by 1.5 per cent. Prudential has passed on a fall in guarantee costs for the product which offers a secure minimum income for life as well as giving customers the opportunity to benefit from potential growth. The new pricing applies to quotes issued from 11th October and to all new business where funds have been received from 11th October. Prudential was able to increase ...

Sky is giving customers the chance to share the ultimate TV experience with their friends by hosting their very own Sky+HD Party. Each host will be given one complimentary film to watch in stunning high definition from a choice of three new movie releases from Sky Box Office HD worth GBP3.91, plus a GBP10 M&S voucher to kick off the party in style. Sky+HD customers have a choice of three films to choose from - Inception, Sex and the City 2 and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore - shown exclusively from Friday 10th to Sunday 12th December. To qualify for ...

Thistle Hotels has announced the appointment of Alan Whiteley as general manager of Thistle Brands Hatch hotel. Already a respected general manager within the company, Whiteley makes the move from Thistle Middlesbrough, where he was responsible for significantly raising the profile of the hotel in the region and helping it become the star performer of the group. Starting his hotel career as a kitchen porter when he left school, Whiteley has built up a wealth of experience over the 17 years he has worked in the hotel industry. Not content with being a porter for long, ...

According to Bupa, the British workplace is losing an estimated GBP1.6 billion a year due to lack of sleep.   The Bupa 'How Are You Britain?' report* reveals sleep-starved workers are taking three extra days sick leave a year compared to their well rested colleagues - costing UK businesses over GBP280 per annum for every employee.  The report reveals that over a quarter (27 per cent) of the working nation  wakes up feeling tired and unrefreshed, with Sunday being the worst night of the week for a bad night's sleep.     Bupa sleep expert, Dr Ian Mak from the ...

Prudential has conducted new research* that reveals more than half of UK adults aged 40-plus and who are not yet retired are at risk of losing all or part of their private pension income if one partner dies because they are failing to make any pension provision for each other. The study reveals 39 per cent of couples do not have arrangements in place to ensure that pension income continues to be paid after the death of one partner, and another 13 per cent do not know what will happen to their retirement income and other investments if their partner dies. Only 48 per ...

House of Fraser, the premium department store, has announced the launch of the new collection of Lipsy dresses designed by Pixie Lott. Following the success of her debut fashion range for Lipsy earlier this year, British pop princess and style icon Pixie Lott has once again teamed up with the high street fashion label for a show-stopping Autumn/Winter dresses collection. Currently available at www.houseoffraser.co.uk, the collection comprises two distinct looks - Pixie Party and Pixie Rocks - inspired by the singer's own rock chick girly style and her favourite style ...

XM Works, Inc. announces the launch of XMTrade.com, an online international sales and trade management platform. XM Trade offers subscribers direct access to over 15,000 international buyers in 100 countries via its own private virtual network. XM Trade is also a comprehensive trade management solution where sellers can display and store all product and customer information, manage opportunities, track sales and shipments and generate sales and marketing activity reports securely via the web. Subscribers also benefit from an unlimited amount of cloud storage for sharing ...

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have created a technoeconomic model that should help accelerate the development of a next generation of clean, green biofuels that can compete with gasoline in economics and well as performance. This on-line, wiki-based model enables researchers to pursue the most promising strategies for cost-efficient biorefinery operations by simulating such critical factors as production costs and energy balances under different processing scenarios. "The high production cost of biofuels has been the main ...

The decision to stop life-support for incapacitated and critically ill patients is, for surrogate decision makers, often fraught with moral and ethical uncertainty, and long-term emotional consequences. But as difficult as these decisions are, more than half of surrogate decision makers prefer to have full authority over the choice than to share or cede that power to physicians, according to a recent study out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "This report suggests that many surrogates may prefer more decisional control for value-laden decisions in ...

Women with dense breasts and no lobular involution were at a higher risk for developing breast cancer than those with non-dense breasts and complete involution, according to a study published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Apart from age, family history, and age at menarche, two additional factors associated with breast cancer risk include mammographic breast density and extent of lobular involution. Lobular involution is the physiological atrophy of the breast epithelium and is known to increase with increasing age. To determine whether ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Two University of Florida researchers and their international colleagues have used mathematical models and maps to estimate the feasibility of eliminating malaria from countries that have the deadliest form of the disease. Andrew Tatem led a study that appears online today and in the November print edition of the British medical journal The Lancet Malaria Elimination Series. "People need to know that the money they are spending is having an effect," said Tatem, an assistant professor with joint appointments in UF's geography department, Emerging ...

What's old is new again. That's the lesson that can be taken from the University of Cincinnati-based journal, "Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists," due out Nov. 1. The annually produced journal, edited since 2006 by Peter van Minnen, UC associate professor of classics, features the most prestigious global research on papyri, a field of study known as papyrology. (Papyrology is formally known as the study of texts on papyrus and other materials, mainly from ancient Egypt and mainly from the period of Greek and Roman rule.) It's an area of research that ...

Republican claims of political corruption in North Carolina's Democratic Party have made little impact on public opinion among potential voters in the state, according to new polling data analyzed by North Carolina State University researchers. The findings show that highlighting actual corruption is not necessarily an effective electoral strategy. "The North Carolina Republican party has tried to brand state Democrats as corrupt, but we don't know whether voters respond to this strategy," says Dr. Michael Cobb, an associate professor of political science at NC State. ...

Few fish are famed for their parenting skills. Most species leave their freshly hatched fry to fend for themselves, but not discus fish. Jonathan Buckley from the University of Plymouth, UK, explains that discus fish young feed on the mucus that their parents secrete over their bodies until they are big enough to forage. 'The parental care that they exhibit is very unusual,' says Buckley. Intrigued by the fish's lifestyle, Buckley's PhD advisor, Katherine Sloman, established a collaboration with Adalberto Val from the Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Molecular Evolution ...

28 October 2010 (Geneva, Switzerland) - A report issued today by the International AIDS Society, Universal Access: Right Here, Right Now documents the principal debates around universal access during the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010). The report also takes stock of progress to date and reveals the scale of the future challenge for HIV treatment and prevention at a time when new infections are outstripping those receiving treatment by five to two. While significant progress has been made towards achieving universal access to HIV prevention, treatment ...

Scientists of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of MDC and Charité in Berlin-Buch have gained new insights into the development of epithelial cells and their molecular repertoire. Dr. Max Werth, Katharina Walentin and Professor Kai Schmidt-Ott have identified a transcription factor (grainyhead-like 2, Grhl2), which regulates the composition of the molecular "bridges" that link adjacent epithelial cells. The authors were able to demonstrate that Grhl2, via DNA-binding, directly regulates ...

An international team of Mycologists and Ecologists studying Atlantic sea turtles at Cape Verde have discovered that the species is under threat from a fungal infection which targets eggs. The research, published in FEMS Microbiology Letters , reveals how the fungus Fusarium solani may have played a key role in the 30-year decline in turtle numbers. "In the past 30 years we have witnessed an abrupt decline in the number of nesting beaches of sea turtles worldwide," said Drs. Javier Diéguez-Uribeondo and Adolfo Marco from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas- ...

The change in the ice mass covering Antarctica is a critical factor in global climate events. Scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have now found that the year by year mass variations in the western Antarctic are mainly attributable to fluctuations in precipitation, which are controlled significantly by the climate phenomenon El Nino. They examined the GFZ data of the German-American satellite mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment). The investigation showed significant regional differences in the western coastal area of the South ...

DETROIT – For pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery – the only known cure for this form of cancer – a highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may help slow cancer progression and lessen disease symptoms, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study found it was able to delay pancreatic cancer progression locally, on average, by almost six months. While, on average, the patients in the study lived about 10 months, one-third lived more than a year. Without any treatment – surgery, ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 29, 2010—Women experience and interact with their natural surroundings in ways that differ from men. The way in which those differences affect a woman's sense of self, body image, and drive to protect and preserve the environment are explored in a thought-provoking special issue of Ecopsychology, a peer-reviewed, online journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The entire issue is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/eco Guest Editors Britain Scott, PhD, from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) and Lisa ...

A new study by researchers at the University of Leicester and University of Leeds has concluded that parents' efforts towards their child's educational achievement is crucial – playing a more significant role than that of the school or child. This research by Professor Gianni De Fraja and Tania Oliveira, both in the Economics Department at the University of Leicester and Luisa Zanchi, at the Leeds University Business School, has been published in the latest issue of the MIT based Review of Economics and Statistics. The researchers found that parents' effort is more ...