ESA’s Integral has made the first unambiguous discovery of high-energy X-rays coming from a rare massive star at our cosmic doorstep, Eta Carinae. It is one of the most violent places in the galaxy, producing vast winds of electrically-charged particles colliding at speeds of thousands of kilometres per second.

The only astronomical object that emits gamma-rays and is observable by the naked eye, Eta Carinae is monstrously large, so large that astronomers call it a hypergiant. It contains between 100–150 times the mass of the Sun and glows more brightly than four million Suns put together. Astronomers know that it is not a single star, but a binary, with a second massive star orbiting the first.

HALIFAX, England, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- ImmunoVaccine Technologies Inc. (IVT), a vaccine development company, announced today the appointment of former senator, Michael Kirby, as the new Board of Directors Chair. Michael Kirby succeeds the late Dr. Warrick Kimmins, who provided exemplary leadership during his tenure and was instrumental in spinning out IVT's novel technology from Dalhousie University.

"I am passionate about advancing health care and am delighted to be part of such a fast-growing biotech company," said former senator Michael Kirby. "IVT has an impressive track record and its patented technology holds tremendous potential to improve vaccines worldwide."

PARIS, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that T-Systems, the business customer unit of Deutsche Telekom, has selected its Business integrated Communications Solution (BiCS) server as one of the platforms for its mid-market managed voice services. Alcatel-Lucent is a strategic partner of T-Systems. This is the second innovative voice solution agreement between the two companies, providing integration of communications applications, mobile-telephony and fixed networks for seamless communications.

When the public considers competing arguments about a new technology’s potential risks and benefits, people will tend to agree with the expert whose values are closest to their own, no matter what position the expert takes. The same will hold true for nanotechnology, a key study has found.

The study results appear in a report issued today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). The study was based on experiments involving some 1,600 American adults and was carried out by the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School — an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Yale University, the University of Washington, The George Washington University, Cornell University, and Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon.

CAMBRIDGE, England, February 20 /PRNewswire/ --

- ARM Expands its Graphics Stack With Mali-JSR297 Software for Graphics Acceleration on a Wide Range of Next-Generation Mobile Devices

OXFORD, England, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- t+ Medical, the UK's leading supplier of telemedicine solutions for long term conditions has partnered with LifeScan, Inc, a leading manufacturer of blood glucose meters to help people with diabetes more effectively manage their condition.

t+ Medical provides a comprehensive system of care which takes data from LifeScan blood glucose meters and wirelessly transmits the information to a central database. Using intelligent algorithms; this information is then analyzed and translated for patients in the form of simple graphs which can be viewed on their mobile phone or a personal computer. Patients are therefore able to track their condition, and monitor their diabetes giving them greater insight into their disease day by day.

WORCESTER, England, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- In the current economic climate, every retailer is looking for ways to improve efficiency and maintain profitability by grabbing a larger share of the market. Many major corporations are already using weather forecasts to aid in their business strategies, but smaller retailers may be ignoring a key to continued success in a challenging period.

It is estimated that some 10% of the British economy is weather sensitive, with billions of pounds of revenue being lost every year due to retailers not having or acting upon the correct weather information.

Volcanoes are notoriously hard to study. All the action takes place deep inside, at enormous temperatures. So geophysicists make models, using what they know to develop theories about what they don’t know.

Research led by Gregory P. Waite, an assistant professor of geophysics at Michigan Technological University, has produced a new seismic model for figuring out what’s going on inside Mount St. Helens, North America’s most active volcano. Waite hopes his research into the causes of the earthquakes that accompany the eruption of a volcano will help scientists better assess the hazard of a violent explosion at Mount St. Helens and similar volcanoes.

LONDON, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Manpower Software plc, the leading provider of workforce optimization and scheduling solutions, and Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS), a global provider of business process outsourcing, information technology, and consulting solutions, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver Manpower Software's market-leading MAPS Health Suite, a workforce optimization and scheduling solution, to the U.S. healthcare market. Under the agreement, ACS Healthcare Solutions (ACS HCS) will also serve as Manpower Software's systems integrator in the United States.

Manpower Software plc CEO, Ian Bowles, commented: