TORONTO, January 5 /PRNewswire/ --

President of cbm, Prof. Allen Foster announces that cbm has expanded its areas of work to include all persons with disability, not just persons with visual loss.

For the past 100 years, cbm previously known as Christoffel Blinden Mission, and Christian Blind Mission, has worked to prevent and treat blindness and provide education and rehabilitation services for persons with visual loss.

"The organization has decided that its purpose and work is to improve the quality of life of all persons with disability, which includes those with hearing or physical impairment and mental ill health as well as those with visual loss," says Prof. Foster.

A group of scientists in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology has uncovered a new biological mechanism that could provide a clearer window into a cell's inner workings.

What's more, this mechanism could represent an "epigenetic" pathway -- a route that bypasses an organism's normal DNA genetic program -- for so-called Lamarckian evolution, enabling an organism to pass on to its offspring characteristics acquired during its lifetime to improve their chances for survival. Lamarckian evolution is the notion, for example, that the giraffe's long neck evolved by its continually stretching higher and higher in order to munch on the more plentiful top tree leaves and gain a better shot at surviving.

Planarians have fascinated centuries of biologists by their amazing powers of regeneration. If you decapitate a planarian, the body can grow a new head, and the head can grow a new body. In fact, if you cut out a very tiny chunk from the side of a planarian, that chunk will be able to regenerate a new, complete organism. How do these strange critters manage this? What genes do they have that we don't have? As it turns out, most planarian genes are shared with humans, and several groups of scientists are using the latest tools of genomics and molecular biology to figure out just what it is that gives planarians their remarkable powers of regeneration. These researchers hope that planarians will ultimately teach us how to regenerate human injuries.

LAS VEGAS, January 4 /PRNewswire/ --

Vanguard Integrity Professionals CEO, CTO and founder, Ronn Bailey, expressed his "devastation" and "significant disappointment" in light of today's announcement that, for the first time in 30 years, the Dakar race has been cancelled. The decision to call off the race was due to direct security threats made by Al Qaeda to attack the race from Portugal to Senegal.

Helius to Enhance Hughes' Business IPTV and Managed Network Service Offerings

Hughes Communications, Inc. (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite network solutions and a leading broadband managed network services provider, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Helius, Inc., a portfolio company of Canopy Ventures.

The acquisition is expected to be completed on or about February 4, 2008.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Helius will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes and will operate closely with Hughes' North America and International enterprise businesses.

Should a rural, sparsely populated and predominantly white conservative state be the initial battleground for presidential nominations?

Well, someone has to go first but Steven S. Smith, the Kate M. Gregg Professor of Social Sciences Washington University in St. Louis, says it's time for Iowa to just go.

Smith says he has nothing against Iowa or New Hampshire, but he has serious misgivings about their special role as the first in the nation to select nominees. Iowa, he says, is far from representative of the nation — its population is too rural and too white to play such a critical role in choosing the nominee.

Poor water supply remains a key problem in large parts of Africa and Asia.

CALGARY, Canada, January 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Tristone Capital is pleased to announce the initiation of equity research coverage on Schlumberger (SLB), Halliburton (HAL), and Baker Hughes (BHI). Coverage will be led by Waqar Syed, Vice President & Director, Institutional Research, based in Tristone's Denver office. Mr. Syed began his 20 year career in the oil and gas industry as a wireline engineer with Schlumberger in the Middle East and has worked as an energy research analyst for 14 years. Mr. Syed was ranked as the No. 1 earnings forecaster in the energy sector by StarMine in 2007 and was the No. 4 overall earnings forecaster among all research analysts across all sectors.

COPENHAGEN, January 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- Summary: Genmab Has Announced a New Pre-clinical Antibody Program Called HuMax-CD32b.

Genmab A/S (OMX: GEN) announced today a new pre-clinical antibody program called HuMax-CD32b(TM). This fully human IgG1,k antibody targets the CD32b receptor found on immune cells and hematological tumors. HuMax-CD32b may have therapeutic potential in the treatment of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, small lymphocytic lymphoma, Burkitt's lymphoma, follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.