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.

Many people will write columns, fiction, games, et cetera for the joy of doing it.  But that leads me to an important distinction between writing versus publishing.  Writers-- good and bad-- will write for free.  History tells us that.  But a good editor won't, and publishing great works requires great editors.

In all the Web2.0 talk of removing barriers between creators and audience, the role of 'publisher' is often considered a dark ages legacy, fit to be abolished.  But the role of editor rarely is invoked, and I think that's a mistake.  Yes, the editor is the bane to writers, but they are a hidden blessing to readers.  

Differences in growth factor (GF) signaling may cause the poor prognosis in some breast cancer cases. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics, suggests that some estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers respond poorly to tamoxifen because of increased GF signaling.