On October 18, 2010, United States District Court Chief Justice Mark L. Wolf sentenced Nicholas Djokich to 20 years in a federal penitentiary for his role in a 2008 international kidnapping and murder-for-hire plot. As a result, Djokich will not be eligible for parole until 2026, when he will be 76 years old. Djokich was represented by the firm of Denner Pellegrino in Boston, Massachusetts. Djokich, 60, is a Canadian national who was arrested in the United States in 2008 on charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. The target ...

The Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport Hotel North offers nearby lodging to fans attending Morehouse College football games. Home games are played at the B.T. Harvey Stadium on the school's campus in the historic West End section of Atlanta, just minutes from downtown. There two remaining games this season, including Morehouse vs. Clark Atlanta University which will be play at nearby Panther's Stadium at Clark Atlanta University on October 30, 2010. Morehouse College, the nation's only private, historically black liberal arts college for men, is enjoying its best football ...

The 1985 Bears Super Bowl Championship winning team are reuniting for one night only to celebrate Chicago's Super Bowl XX win. The official reunion, the Allstate GLORY DAYS Legends of the Chicago Bears 25th anniversary, kicks off with a breakfast club meeting between Coach Mike Ditka and Coach Buddy Ryan. It is the first time the two will be side-by-side in years. Comic and entertainer Tom Dreesen will bring the two football greats together for the breakfast and later host the official reunion show. Coach Ditka said: "Everyone thinks they know about me and Buddy ...

Canadian performer and educator Kyle Dine is the world's first "Allergy Musician". Dine's new CD, "Food Allergies Rock!", contains 14 singalong songs that put a positive spin on food allergies. The album will be released Wednesday, October 27th, with the U.S. launch being held at a food-allergy-friendly Halloween party in the New York City metro area on Sunday, October 31. "Food Allergies Rock!" is the follow-up to Dine's breakthrough CD, "You Must Be Nuts!", which stayed near the top of the Galaxie children's radio charts for months in 2008. Since releasing his first ...

Jackpot Games Ltd announced today that it has been shortlisted for the One to Watch award from the online gaming magazine, E-Gaming Review, after the publication released the list of candidates on the 20th October. The Malta-based online casino launched in April this year and is home to over 90 instant play casino games. Its candidature for the highly valued accolade demonstrates the appeal the brand has and the company's plans for the coming months and 2011. Jackpot Games CEO, Ramon Azzopardi, highlighted this by commenting: "Jackpot Games has come a long way quickly, ...

An eBook written by Warabe Kimika, a popular author of picture books, is for the first time compatible with five languages and available in 90 countries in the world. NEXTBOOK Inc. ("NEXTBOOK"; head office in Minato Ward, Tokyo; its CEO is Mr. Kenichiro Osada) released "Warabe Kimika's Illustrated Animal Book", an eBook for iPad written for the first time by Warabe Kimika, a popular picture book author, on October 8. 2010. iPhone version will be released at the end of November. It is the first of the "pi-bo Ehon*" series published by NEXTBOOK, as well as the first ...

Global Warranty Group, a leading third party administrator and premier provider of Extended Service Plans and OEM programs for consumer electronics and appliances in the US and Canada, announced today the launch of RepairGuardian(TM) its exciting new Extended Service Program. This comprehensive new program affords both retailers and manufacturers a complete "turnkey" ESP solution that is easy to implement and will result in increased attachment rates while also providing superior customer service. RepairGuardian(TM) leverages and incorporates many of Global Warranty ...

Every visit to CiCi's Pizza, home of the $4.99 endless pizza, pasta, salad and dessert buffet, ends with two words: Thank You. This November, CiCi's will provide our communities and guests an opportunity to show appreciation this Thanksgiving with "Thank Yous Count." Starting Nov. 1 and continuing through the end of the month, each restaurant will stock "Thank Yous Count" trackers. The pocket-sized cards help parents note each time their child offers an unprompted "thank you." Once the card is full, parents can present the card for a free buffet for kids 10 and under ...

Today Bruegger's Enterprises Inc. announced a new partnership with Children's Miracle Network, a charity that raises funds for 170 children's hospitals throughout North America. October 27 will kick off Bruegger's first company-wide fundraising program with Children's Miracle Network. The bagel chain, with 299 locations in 26 states, will support the charity by donating a portion of proceeds from sales of its popular Bottomless Mug Club. Guests who purchase the mug will not only receive unlimited free refills of coffee, tea or soft drinks for a full year -- they'll ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The impact of China's devastating 2008 earthquake was substantially lessened by environmental conservation programs for some of the country's most fragile habitats, according to research published in a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science this week. Analysis of satellite imagery and field data by scientists at Michigan State University and in China show the quake – and the resulting landslides – affected 10 percent of the forests covering the mountains that are home to endangered species, including the beloved giant panda. But it could ...

A new study in the Journal of General Physiology (JGP) shows that the contribution of odorant receptors (ORs) to olfactory response in mammals is much more complex than previously thought, with important consequences for odorant encoding and information transfer about odorants to the brain. The study appears online on October 25 (www.jgp.org). ORs, which provide a system for mammals to discriminate between many different odors, form a large, diverse group of G protein–coupled receptors corresponding to around 1,000 functionally distinct receptors in rodents and 350 in ...

High erythropoietin levels in people over age 85 indicate a higher risk of death, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj100347.pdf. Erythropoietin is a hormone created in the kidneys to stimulate production of red blood cells. Production is triggered by impaired oxygen delivery to the kidney because of anemia or low blood oxygen levels. In patients with chronic heart failure, high erythropoietin levels predict higher mortality. The researchers looked at data from the Leiden ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Ever wonder why some people breeze along on four hours of sleep when others can barely function? It may be in our genes, according to new research and an accompanying editorial published in the October 26, 2010, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at people who have a gene variant that is closely associated with narcolepsy, a sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness. However, having the gene variant, called DQB1 *0602, does not mean that a person will develop narcolepsy; ...

A new study reveals that two enzymes help immune cells deploy pathogen-killing traps by unraveling and using the chromatin (DNA and its associated proteins) contained in the cells' nuclei to form defensive webs. The study appears online on October 25 in The Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org). Neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cells, are difficult to study because they live for only about six hours. So Arturo Zychlinsky and colleagues, from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, created a cell-free system that includes neutrophil nuclei ...

Washington, DC – Studies have shown higher survival rates for people with head and neck cancers that test positive for HPV when they are treated with systemic chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Now a new study suggests outcomes are also better when radiation therapy is combined with cetuximab, a targeted therapy. The data will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, October 31st through November 4th in San Diego. The study, conducted at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, analyzed tumors from sequentially treated ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Fertility procedures such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) require a couple and the doctor to place the risky bet that the multiple eggs they choose to fertilize will produce an embryo that will thrive in the uterus. Researchers cannot biopsy eggs directly because that would destroy them, but a new discovery by professors at Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital could lead to new insights about how eggs develop and ultimately inform judgments about how the embryos they produce will fare. The idea is to examine the genetic material ...

A team of researchers, led by Ashley Moffett, at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, has shed new light on genetic factors that increase susceptibility to and provide protection from common disorders of pregnancy, specifically recurrent miscarriage, preeclampsia, and fetal growth restriction. A key step in the initiation of a successful pregnancy is the invasion of the lining of the uterus by fetal cells known as trophoblasts, which become the main cell type of the placenta. Recurrent miscarriage, preeclampsia, and fetal growth restriction are thought to result ...

Platelets are cells in the blood that have a key role in stopping bleeding. Thrombocytopenia is the medical term used to describe the presence of abnormally low numbers of platelets in the blood. Platelet transfusion is used to treat several causes of thrombocytopenia, but there is a shortage of donors. Mortimer Poncz and colleagues, at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, working with mice, have now identified a potential new approach to platelet replacement therapy that circumvents the problem of donor shortage. Platelets in the blood arise from cells known as megakaryocytes. ...

EDITOR'S PICK: Pregnancy outcome affected by immune system genes A team of researchers, led by Ashley Moffett, at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, has shed new light on genetic factors that increase susceptibility to and provide protection from common disorders of pregnancy, specifically recurrent miscarriage, preeclampsia, and fetal growth restriction. A key step in the initiation of a successful pregnancy is the invasion of the lining of the uterus by fetal cells known as trophoblasts, which become the main cell type of the placenta. Recurrent miscarriage, ...

October 25, 2010 (Oakland, Calif.) – Heavy smoking in midlife is associated with a 157 percent increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and a 172 percent increased risk of developing vascular dementia, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. This is the first study to look at the long-term consequences of heavy smoking on dementia. Researchers followed an ethnically diverse population of 21,123 men and women from midlife onward for an average of 23 years. Compared with non-smokers, those who had smoked more than ...

Contrary to common assumptions, the risk of cancer associated with radiation exposure in middle age may not be lower than the risk associated with exposure at younger ages, according to a study published online October 25 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It is well known that children are more sensitive than adults to the effects of radiation and that they have a greater risk of developing radiation-induced cancer than adults. Some data also suggest that, in general, the older a person is when exposed to radiation, the lower their risk of developing a radiation-induced ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Weather systems in the Southern and Northern hemispheres will respond differently to global warming, according to an MIT atmospheric scientist's analysis that suggests the warming of the planet will affect the availability of energy to fuel extratropical storms, or large-scale weather systems that occur at Earth's middle latitudes. The resulting changes will depend on the hemisphere and season, the study found. More intense storms will occur in the Southern Hemisphere throughout the year, whereas in the Northern Hemisphere, the change in storminess ...

UBC researchers have identified the world's largest marine virus--an unusually complex 'mimi-like virus' that infects an ecologically important and widespread planktonic predator. Cafeteria roenbergensis virus has a genome larger than those found in some cellular organisms, and boasts genetic complexity that blurs the distinction between "non-living" and "living" entities. "Virus are classically thought of small, simple organisms in terms of the number of genes they carry," says UBC professor Curtis Suttle, an expert in marine microbiology and environmental virology ...

Black men who are offered a blood pressure check while at the barbershop appear more likely to improve control of hypertension, according to a report posted online today that will be published in the February 28 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Uncontrolled hypertension is one of the most important causes of premature disability and death among non-Hispanic black men," the authors write as background information in the article. "Compared with black women, men have less frequent physician contact for preventive care and ...

Clinician's wages appear to vary significantly across physician specialties and are lowest for those in primary care, according to a report in the October 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Numerous studies have documented substantial income disparities between primary care and other physician specialties. Such disparities may impede health care reform by undermining the sustainability of a vigorous primary care workforce," the authors write as background information in the article. Comparing clinicians' annual income may not ...