HONG KONG, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Buoyed on by the success of the previous Fashion Access (FA), the next event, scheduled 2 - 4 October 2008, will focus on the upcoming season under the slogan 'Let's Go Summer 2009'.

The earlier event, held at the end of March 2008, heralded the growing importance of the twice-a-year exhibition in determining trends across a wide range of lifestyle accessories for forthcoming seasons. It is a unique event that encompasses bags, footwear, travelware, leather goods and, of course, fashion accessories.

Fashion Access is now the 'must attend' event for exhibitors and buyers alike who have to stay in the fast lane of world fashion.

LONDON, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- BT (LSE:BT-A.L, NYSE:BT) has joined forces with Retalix Ltd. (NASDAQ: RTLX), to launch a range of products and services which will meet the entire in-store technology requirements of food and convenience retailers in the U.K.

The co-operation agreement, announced at Retail Solutions 2008, brings together Retalix's industry-established store technology platform with BT's team of retail experts, who have a track record of delivering successful store infrastructure implementations across a variety of retail store types. Combined with its capabilities in communications and networked IT, BT will be able to offer a new end-to-end grocery solution to the UK marketplace.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --

Biologists at Harvard University have determined that some African frogs puncture their own skin with sharp bones in their toes when threatened, using the bones as claws capable of wounding predators. It's not quite the X-Men's Wolverine (they can't cut through Magneto) but it's a nifty defensive mechanism.

"Most vertebrates do a much better job of keeping their skeletons inside," said David C. Blackburn, a doctoral student in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. "It's surprising enough to find a frog with claws. The fact that those claws work by cutting through the skin of the frogs' feet is even more astonishing. These are the only vertebrate claws known to pierce their way to functionality."

Homer's Odyssey, be it history or fiction, had one potentially true part that has fascinated readers throughout the ages - namely whether Odysseus returned home to experience a total solar eclipse.

Total eclipses, when the moon briefly but completely blocks the sun, happen pretty rarely. In fact, they're so rare that if what Homer describes is truly an eclipse, it could potentially help historians date the fall of Troy, which was purported to occur around the time of the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

After arguing about the point for hundreds of years, historians, astronomers and classicists finally agreed that there was no corroborating evidence and tabled the discussion. Now, Marcelo O. Magnasco, head of the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at Rockefeller, and Constantino Baikouzis of the Proyecto Observatorio at the Observatorio Astronómico in La Plata, Argentina, believe they have found some overlooked passages that, taken together, may shed new light on the timing of an epic journey.

CHANGZHOU, China, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --

Niutang Chemical, a leading global manufacturer of food additives, pharmaceutical intermediates and curing agents, has recruited Alan Turner to lead its new office in the United Kingdom. As sales director of Niutang U.K. Ltd., Mr. Turner will spearhead all of Nuitang's sales and marketing in the U.K., including sweeteners and folic acid. He will particularly focus on the company's fast-growing businesses in aspartame and sucralose.

LONDON, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite, the UK's largest trade union, has criticised the Government for reneging on a proposal that would have given workers the right to paid time off for training.

Under new proposals outlined last week, from 2010, employees will be entitled to request time off work for training after six months in a job. However, Skills Minister David Lammy has stated that employers would not be obliged to pay an employee's salary while they were undertaking training, neither would they be obliged to organise or pay for the training.

Commenting on the minister's statement Graham Goddard, Deputy General Secretary of Unite, said;

COPENHAGEN and TALLINN, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- European Health Ministers Meet to Focus on Link Between Health and Economic Success. New Charter on Health Systems Expected to be Signed

It has long been accepted that greater wealth allows people to make better health choices, but does the reverse apply? Does greater health lead to greater wealth, both on a personal and a national level?

Want to put your computer to good use while you sleep? Muhammad Zaman, assistant professor in biomedical engineering, recently introduced Cellular Environment in Living Systems @Home or CELS@Home for short. The program already has more than 1,000 computer users worldwide contributing to the project and the numbers are growing.

The idea is based on grid computing so instead of using local computing resources, which are almost always limited, Internet users worldwide can contribute their idle computer time, creating a "virtual" supercomputer to solve a difficult problem. In this case, the grid computing program is calculating cellular interactions in different environments to help understand the principles of cell migration and cancer cell metastasis, or the spread of cancer from the original tumor to other parts of the body.

LONDON, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --

National Floor Show is pleased to announce the involvement of Homes & Gardens magazine at this years event, held from 2-4 September 2008.

Homes & Gardens, one of the UK's leading home and lifestyle magazines, will be carrying out some extensive research into the flooring industry over the next few months, setting up focus groups to discover buyers' thoughts and views within the industry, their product preferences and to ascertain the buzzing trends within the industry.