Thinking of heading down to the Ms. Adrenaline Swimsuit Competition? Not surprising.  Sex attracts and naked bodies flaunted for all to see, attract even more. Researchers from four universities across the US and Canada prodded into our sexual habits to answer the question of what characteristics attract us to our mates. The results were published in the journal Personality And Individual Differences, with a trend line showing those with hard bodies, a curvy waist-hip ratio and strong chin lines tend to be better in bed but perhaps more apt to cheat.

High cholesterol levels are considered to be a risk factor not only for cardiovascular disease including stroke, but also for the development of Alzheimer's disease so cholesterol lowering drugs, including statins, developed in recent years may help with both. In addition to the cholesterol reducing effect of statins Amalia Dolga, PhD, of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and her co-investigators have demonstrated that statins can protect nerve cells against damage which we know to occur in the brain of Alzheimer's disease patients.

The results are published in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Rearrangements in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even triplicating genes or just shuffling or deleting part of the code within them, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a recent report in Nature Genetics. The report further elucidated the effect of the fork stalling and template switching mechanism involved in some forms of copy number variation.

In England and Wales, the national health statistics in 2007 showed that there were 8,324 death certificates which named Clostridium difficile. This is a bacterium which causes severe diarrhea in humans and animals as the underlying cause of death, a 28% increase from 2006.

Now Janet Nale of the Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation is investigating the contributing factors that make Clostridium difficile so aggressive to direct treatment. 

Nale said: “Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and some can completely change the behaviour of their host bacteria, or affect its ability to cause disease. In some cases, bacteriophages have been shown to convert a mild strain to a severe one.

JOHANNESBURG, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- South African Investment Manager to migrate back office processes to hosted offering

Eagle Investment Systems LLC, a leading provider of financial services technology and a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon, has been selected by Prescient to deliver its integrated investment management suite via its application service provider (ASP), Eagle ACCESS(SM).

Prescient, with R60 billion under management in South Africa, selected the Eagle suite to streamline its growing local and global operations. Eagle will assist Prescient to meet increasing client reporting requirements and provide access to data in an efficient and effective manner. The implementation is scheduled to begin during the summer.

LONDON, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Record Number of Vocational Qualifications Awarded

- With Photo

Over 3.6 million vocational qualifications were awarded last year according to figures released by independent education foundation Edge to celebrate VQ Day (Vocational Qualifications Day).

The figures show an increase of 350,000 in the number of vocational qualifications awarded, up 11 per cent on the previous year.

LONDON, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Concerns about the economy and personal finances have workers rethinking holiday plans, according to a recent survey by CareerBuilder. Thirty-six percent of employed workers in Europe reported they are not planning to take a holiday in 2009, similar to findings reported by U.S. workers in a separate survey. Of those not planning to take a holiday, 41 percent of European workers said they simply can't afford it while another 10 percent are worried about taking days away from the office in an economy where so many jobs have been lost.

BERLIN, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Finnish-based Independent Developer Will Give an Inside View of Their Work on Intellectual Properties from Max Payne to Alan Wake

LONDON, June 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Record Number of VQs Awarded

- With Photo

Over 3.6 million vocational qualifications were awarded last year according to figures released by independent education foundation Edge to celebrate VQ Day (Vocational Qualifications Day).

The figures show an increase of 350,000 in the number of vocational qualifications awarded, up 11 per cent on the previous year. The findings are contained in a review of the vocational qualifications landscape released by Edge today.

Ken Miller vs. Jerry Coyne: Can you believe in God and evolution? Many creationists say no. But so does Jerry Coyne, as well as a fair number of other non-believing scientists active in the blogosphere. If you follow the science blogging community, you've probably tuned in to, or at least overhead snippets of, the debate between the believing Ken Miller, and the non-believer Jerry Coyne. Both are well-regarded scientists, with impressive research track records, and both are very outspoken opponents of creationism and intelligent design, as well as defenders of evolution.