Loneliness is commonly regarded as a social phenomenon in which individual personality differences contribute to its severity. Some people enjoy solitude, for example, because they never feel lonely, while people with high degrees of loneliness have shorter life expectancies than people who never feel lonely.

There may be more to it than that. Recent research shows that the gene expression in the immune cells of people with chronically high levels of loneliness is different than people who do not feel lonely. Even more telling, some genes were underexpressed in the same subjects, including those in antibody production.

Bisexuality in women appears to be a distinctive sexual orientation and not a transitional stage that some women adopt "on their way" to lesbianism or as a temporary phase in otherwise heterosexual behavior, according to new research in Developmental Psychology.

The study of 79 non-heterosexual women over 10 years found that bisexual women maintained a stable pattern of attraction to both sexes.

In an PLoS ONE article, Joan B. Company and colleagues at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) in Spain describe a mechanism of interaction across ecosystems showing how a climate-driven phenomenon originated in shelf environments controls the biological processes of a deep-sea living resource.

The progressive depletion of world fisheries is one of the key socio-economical issues of the forthcoming century. However, amid this worrying scenario, Company’s study demonstrates how a climate-induced phenomenon occurring at a decadal time-scale, such as the formation of dense shelf waters and its subsequent downslope cascading can repeatedly reverse the general trend of overexploitation of a deep-sea living resource.

It's possible to generate energy by growing plant material and burning it. If managed well, most of the carbon released by burning the material will be captured by the growing plants, and so have a low impact on overall levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

A better solution is using the growing plants to help solve other environmental problems.

One set of systems currently running in Sweden grows willow trees and irrigates them with sewage effluent. This helps purify the sewage outflow at the same time as providing fuel.

NEW YORK, January 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Carbon Credit Trading Comes of Age in the United States With Increased Fuel Standard

Belzberg Technologies Inc. (TSX:BLZ).

Answering the Nation's call for dramatic increases in renewable fuel use over the next 10 years, Renewable Trading Services, LLC announced today the development of an Internet based exchange platform for the purpose of trading RIN credits in the United States. The RINMARK(TM) exchange addresses each of the trading requirements established in EPA's final rule for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), first implemented on September 1, 2007 and since expanded with the passage of the 2007 Energy Bill.

A fundamental difference in the way males and females respond to chronic liver disease at the genetic level helps explain why men are more prone to liver cancer, according to MIT researchers.

“This is the first genome-wide study that helps explain why there is such a gender effect in a cancer of a nonreproductive organ, where you wouldn't expect to see one,” said Arlin Rogers, an MIT experimental pathologist and lead author of a paper that appeared last month in the journal Cancer Research.

Men develop liver cancer at twice the rate of women in the United States. In other countries, especially in Asia, the rate for men can be eight or 10 times that for women.

HOUSTON, January 15 /PRNewswire/ --

IDM Group, designers and manufacturers of world-class drilling systems for the international energy industry, today announces that it has named Byron Dunn as Chief Executive Officer of the company. Mr. Dunn brings to the company broad and unique experience in the global energy sector, most recently at Harvest Natural Resources and National Oilwell, and he will use that experience to further expand IDM's global operations. IDM Group provides complete land rig packages and rig equipment to the oil and gas industry from its primary facilities in Houston and Stryi, Ukraine. Mr. Dunn will initially be based in Houston.

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, January 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Program aims to create awareness, cultivate expertise in growing AML field.

In response to an urgent need for anti-money laundering training in Europe, accelerated by the recent implementation of the 3rd EU Money Laundering Directive, the Universiteit Maastricht Business School will offer an 8-day Masterclass for compliance officers, auditors, and other AML professionals. Presented in conjunction with the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), the first session of the Masterclass is scheduled for January 25 and will cover money laundering in the insurance industry.

Members of the National Science Board today delivered to the President and the Congress Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 (SEI'08), the Board's biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education in the United States. Called the "gold standard," it is the most comprehensive source of information on research and development conducted by universities, industry, the federal government and the international science and engineering enterprise.

The highlights; we spend a lot overall but not enough on basic research, the public supports science and spending, and researchers are perhaps a little too reliant on federal funding.

In addition to SEI'08, the Board, concerned that the data revealed disturbing trends with serious policy implications, published a companion piece, Research and Development: Essential Foundation for U.S. Competitiveness in a Global Economy. In this policy statement and in presentations in the U.S. House of Representatives, National Science Board Chairman Steven Beering, Subcommittee Chairman on SEI'08 Louis Lanzerotti and SEI'08 Subcommittee Member Arthur Reilly stressed the need for increased government and industry sharing of funding for basic research.

"These indicators come at an important time," said Chairman Beering. "The confluence of a range of indicators raises key questions about future U.S. high-technology industry's competitiveness in international markets and implications for highly skilled jobs at home."

The Board made three major recommendations:

LONDON, January 15 /PRNewswire/ --

The members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) produced an average 32.03 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in December, according to a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials January 14. This is up from November's rate of 31.65 million b/d.

Production from OPEC's ten members bound by crude output agreements averaged 27.43 million b/d in December, the survey showed. This is 460,000 b/d more than in November and 177,000 b/d higher than the group's 27.253 million b/d target which came into effect at the beginning of November.