Nutrients from the Amazon River spread well beyond the continental shelf and drive carbon capture in the deep ocean, according to the authors of a multi-year study. The finding does not change estimates of the oceans' total carbon uptake, but it reveals the surprisingly large role of tropical oceans and major rivers.

The tropical North Atlantic had been considered a net emitter of carbon from the respiration of ocean life. A 2007 study estimated that ocean's contribution to the atmosphere at 30 million tons of carbon annually.

Geoscientists at the California Institute of Technology have come up with a new explanation for the formation of monsoons, proposing an overhaul of a theory about the cause of the seasonal pattern of heavy winds and rainfall that essentially had held firm for more than 300 years.

The traditional idea of monsoon formation was developed in 1686 by English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley, namesake of Halley's Comet. In Halley's model, monsoons are viewed as giant sea-breeze circulations, driven by the differences in heat capacities between land and ocean surfaces that, upon heating by sunlight, lead to temperature differences between warmer land and cooler ocean surfaces--for example, between the Indian subcontinent and the oceans surrounding it.

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from PowWowNow finds that businesses waste GBP55m of the GBP210m spent each year on conferences-by-'phone, according to a new study.

There's no doubt that 'phone conferencing is an important aspect of mobile working. Workers at all levels need to be able to reliably stay in touch with co-workers and clients. And it's a powerful indication of how important it has become, particularly to people running small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs - typically up to 100 staff), that British business now spends a staggering GBP210m on conference call charges every year!

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Professor Terje Pedersen (Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway), lead investigator for the Simvastatin and Ezetimibe in Aortic Stenosis (SEAS) Study, will provide an update on the study on Monday the 21st July.

Also present in London will be Sir Richard Peto (Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology and Co-director of the Clinical Trials Service Unit, University of Oxford) Professor Rory Collins (BHF Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford and Co-director of the Clinical Trials Service Unit) and Professor Ingar Holme, PhD, (Professor of Biostatistics, University of Oslo and Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway), SEAS steering committee statistician.

PALO ALTO, California and SYDNEY, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Kx Systems, the leader in high-performance database and timeseries analysis, is delighted to announce that it has signed a partnership agreement with Hologram Business Intelligence, the Australian-based supplier of business performance management solutions.

The relationship between the two companies goes back a long way and means that they already have an in-depth understanding of each other's products and businesses. The deal will see Hologram taking on the sales, support and consultancy of Kx's Kdb+ database and its q language in Asia-Pacific. Kx products may also be incorporated into Hologram's offerings in the future.

BREDA, The Netherlands, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Singapore Seminar About Cost Reduction in Benefits Freight Audit Payment

The fast growing Dutch company ControlPay is expanding its activities on the Asian market. The freight audit solutions provider intends to open two new offices in Asia within two years and is to host a seminar in Singapore on August 12 to discuss the benefits of automated freight invoice audit processes.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080721/313798 )

For generations, people have consumed cranberry juice, convinced of its power to ward off urinary tract infections, though the exact mechanism of its action has not been well understood. A new study by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) reveals that the juice changes the thermodynamic properties of bacteria in the urinary tract, creating an energy barrier that prevents the microorganisms from getting close enough to latch onto cells and initiate an infection.

The study, published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces: B, was conducted by Terri Camesano, associate professor of chemical engineering at WPI, and a team of graduate students, including PhD candidate Yatao Liu. They exposed two varieties of E. coli bacteria, one with hair-like projections known as fimbriae and one without, to different concentrations of cranberry juice. Fimbriae are present on a number of virulent bacteria, including those that cause urinary tract infections, and are believed to be used by bacteria to form strong bonds with cells.

The question of whether insulin-producing cells of the pancreas can regenerate is key to our understanding of diabetes, and to the further development of regenerative therapies against the disease. Dr Rosenberg from the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University together with Dr Bernard Massie from the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) have just concluded that they can. The results of their study have been published in the July issue of the journal Laboratory Investigation.

The researchers have shown in vitro that insulin-producing β-cells (beta cells) can return to a more primitive developmental state called stem-like cells. This process is known as "dedifferentiation" and highlights the plasticity of this cell type. This same result has also been validated for the three additional types of cells that – along with β-cells – make up the islets of Langerhans. Together, these islet cells produce insulin and other hormones in the pancreas.

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Roche, the healthcare company, announced today that it has proposed to acquire the outstanding publicly held interest in biotech company Genentech for US$89.00 per share in cash, or a total payment of approximately US$43.7bn to equity holders of Genentech other than Roche. Roche acquired a majority in Genentech in 1990 and currently owns 55.9% of all outstanding shares.

In a video interview Franz Humer, Roche Chairman, said the two companies had collaborated for over 20 years but it was time to put the partnership "on a new level".

"We are absolutely convinced that it is in the interest of both parties that we acquire the 100 per cent and then structure it in a way that strengthens both sides of the operation."

MONTREAL, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

Sipro Lab Telecom (Sipro), the G.729 Patent Pool Licensing Administrator, is pleased to announce that Toshiba Corporation has joined the G.729 Consortium. The G.729 Consortium now represents and pools together the intellectual property rights (IPR) essential to this ITU-T standard of France Telecom, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Universite de Sherbrooke, and Toshiba Corporation -- all recognized industry leaders in the area of speech coding and processing solutions.