SLOUGH, England, December 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Reckitt Benckiser, the manufacturer of Nurofen Plus, has been made aware of the death of a woman earlier this year from acute renal failure who, prior to her death, was taking large quantities of Nurofen Plus (in excess of 48 tablets) daily. This far exceeds the recommended and approved doses (a maximum of six tablets daily).

A Reckitt Benckiser spokesperson comments, "We offer our sincere sympathy to the Docherty family for their tragic loss. However, Reckitt Benckiser would like to reassure consumers that Nurofen Plus, and all other products in the Nurofen range, are safe and effective when taken in accordance with the pack instructions, and used to effectively relieve pain by millions of people every day."

It's been revealed that what Santa needs is a comfortable armchair and a fast finger to turn a 24,902 mile(a) shopping trip around the world into just 1 hour(b) spent in front of a computer, leaving Santa all rested up to do his Christmas Eve deliveries.

150 clicks are all it would take for Santa Claus to buy all the presents from across the world for a typical UK family(c). Santa need not spend £3370 on sleigh fares(d) nor travel 56 hours(e) on his famous sleigh to purchase the presents either, as he would in years past.

Another FDA-approved targeted cancer drug, sunitinib (SutentTM, Pfizer), may be associated with cardiac toxicity, report researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston), and Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia).

Their collaborative study, led by Ming Hui Chen, MD, MMSc, a cardiologist at Children’s who specializes in the cardiac health of cancer patients, appears in the December 15 issue of The Lancet, accompanied by an editorial.

Sunitinib is one of several new “smart” cancer drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors that targets specific signaling molecules inside cancer cells that aid cancer spread.

BASINGSTOKE, England and PHILADELPHIA, December 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- Worldwide Rights for all Potential Uses, Excluding U.S. and Japan

- No Other Existing Therapeutic Treatment for Celiac Disease

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY, TSX: SHQ), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, today announces that it has acquired the worldwide rights, excluding the U.S. and Japan, to AT-1001 from Alba Therapeutics Corporation (Alba). AT-1001 is Alba's lead inhibitor of barrier dysfunction in various gastrointestinal disorders that is currently in Phase 2 development for the treatment of Celiac disease. Shire has acquired rights to all uses for AT-1001, which may also be studied for the treatment of Crohn's disease and other indications.

A team led by a Cardiff University archaeologist has reconstructed a 3,000-year-old glass furnace, showing that Ancient Egyptian glassmaking methods were much more advanced than previously thought.

Dr Paul Nicholson, of the University’s School of History and Archaeology, is leader of an Egypt Exploration Society team working on the earliest fully excavated glassmaking site in the world. The site, at Amarna, on the banks of the Nile, dates back to the reign of Akhanaten (1352 - 1336 B.C.), just a few years before the rule of Tutankhamun.

It was previously thought that the Ancient Egyptians may have imported their glass from the Near East at around this time.

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, December 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Lancet Oncology publication provides important insights on the use of MammaPrint(R) Breast Cancer Prognosis Test in clinical practice

New research demonstrates that the MammaPrint(R) breast cancer prognosis test was successfully implemented in the diagnostic process of breast cancer patients in community hospitals in The Netherlands. MammaPrint(R) assigned up to one-third of the patients to different risk categories as compared to currently used risk assessment tools. In the majority of these situations, it may lead to a reduction in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy. The findings were published in the December issue of The Lancet Oncology.

When humans began to migrate out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, their skin color gradually changed to adapt to their new environments. And when the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, marine ancestors of ocean-dwelling stickleback fish experienced dramatic changes in skin coloring as they colonized newly formed lakes and streams.

New research shows that despite the vast evolutionary gulf between humans and the three-spined stickleback fish, the two species have adopted a common genetic strategy to acquire the skin pigmentation that would help each species thrive in their new environments.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, gained new insights into autophagy -- a cellular degradation process associated with a form of programmed cell death -- by studying the salivary gland cells of the fruit fly.

Since its initial discovery in the 1960s, programmed cell death has been a primary focus of studies for investigators across a wide array of scientific disciplines.

An essential mechanism in development and homeostasis, programmed cell death allows for the clean intracellular destruction of unnecessary or damaged cells. While apoptosis is the most understood type of programmed cell death, recently scientists have begun to take a closer look at autophagy— a highly regulated, catabolic process that essentially allows a cell to eat itself.