LONDON, August 7 /PRNewswire/ -- AmberFin today announces Benchmark Microsystems as the latest addition to its global partner program. The new partnership will enable AmberFin to strengthen its existing presence in the Indian market.

Benchmark will provide local sales and marketing, as well as a systems integration capability and after-sales support for AmberFin's industry-leading iCR software. AmberFin iCR maximizes the value of content by digitizing and transforming new and archived content across multiple delivery platforms.

MUMBAI, India, August 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Global e-learning Provider, Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) Wins an APEX Award for its Web-based Training Program on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

The RFID on the Web(TM) program developed by Tata Interactive Systems (http://www.tatainteractive.com) for OTA Training (http://www.otatraining.com ), the global leader in hands-on, vendor-neutral RFID training, has won the 20th Annual APEX Award in the category "Campaigns, Programs & Plans - Education & Training Campaigns & Programs".

LONDON, August 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Level 3 to Deliver Caching and Download Services to One of Germany's Leading National Newspaper Portals

Level 3 Communications' European Markets Group today announced that it has been selected to provide content delivery services to Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's leading national newspapers. Level 3's content delivery network (CDN) will be used to deliver all video and pictures for the newspaper's Web portal at http://www.sueddeutsche.de.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that as the temperature of a pure substance moves toward absolute zero (the mathematically lowest temperature possible) its entropy, or the disorderly behavior of its molecules, also approaches zero. The molecules should line up in an orderly fashion.

Ice seems to be the exception to that rule. While the oxygen atoms in ice freeze into an ordered crystalline structure, its hydrogen atoms do not.

Researchers at the University of Maryland are using meta-materials, which mimic the behavior of ice but are created out of completely different substances, to try and figure out why water ice doesn't completely conform to the Third Law of Thermodynamics.

Some climate models have predicted that global warming will increase the intensity of extreme precipitation events but a new study conducted at the University of Miami and the University of Reading (U.K.) says their observational evidence confirms the link between a warmer climate and more powerful rainstorms.

It's no more scientifically accurate to imply this year's floods were caused by or made worse by global warming than it was for Al Gore to imply global warming caused Hurricane Katrina but there is no question more intense rain events increase the risk of flooding and can have substantial societal and economic impacts.

A beam will finally be circulated. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will now be ready to go in September, according to CERN's latest estimate.

The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometer tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, according to the press from CERN, its own prototype.

There have been numerous delays but most in the physics community had regarded previous estimates with caution anyway.(1) Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch and commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of each of the machine's eight sectors, a process which had already been delayed.

Researchers have long sought a factor that can trigger the brain's ability to learn – and perhaps recapture the "sponge-like" quality of childhood. In the August 8 issue of the journal Cell, neuroscientists at Children's Hospital Boston report that they've identified such a factor, a protein called Otx 2.

Otx2 helps a key type of cell in the cortex to mature, initiating a critical period -- a window of heightened brain plasticity, when the brain can readily make new connections.

ARNHEM, The Netherlands, August 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Gross Revenues Increase by More Than 20% - Organic Growth Remains at Good Level, With Strongest Performance in Environment - Second Quarter Net Income From Operations Increased 16%, in the First Half Year by 18% - Strong Increases in Revenues and Profit Despite Negative Currency Effect of 6% to 7% - Further Margin Improvement Realized - Expected Increase of Net Income From Operations for Full Year 2008: 10% to 15%

ZURICH, Switzerland, August 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Positive Results to Date Drive Decision to Expand its Proprietary Therapeutic Pipeline

ESBATech AG, a leading developer of antibody fragment therapeutics, today announced that the company has raised an additional CHF 23M (USD 22M, EUR 14M) in an extended Series B venture round to expand its development pipeline. A global syndicate of current investors participated in this round including SV Life Sciences, Clarus Ventures, HBM BioVentures, HBM BioCapital, Novartis Bioventures, BioMedinvest and VI Partners.

Scientists at Tufts University's School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to design an edible optical sensor that can be placed in produce bags to detect harmful levels of bacteria and consumed right along with the veggies. This same technology could mean an implantable device that would monitor glucose in your blood for a year, then dissolve.

Such "living" optical elements that could enable an entirely new class of sensors. These sensors would combine sophisticated nanoscale optics with biological readout functions, be biocompatible and biodegradable, and be manufactured and stored at room temperatures without use of toxic chemicals. The Tufts team used fibers from silkworms to develop the platform devices.