A group of scientists from Durham University say they have found the "missing link" between small and super-massive black holes. The researchers have discovered that a strong X-ray pulse is emitting from a giant black hole in a galaxy 500 million light years from Earth.

The pulse has been created by gas being sucked by gravity on to the black hole at the centre of the REJ1034+396 galaxy.

X-ray pulses are common among smaller black holes, but the Durham research is the first to identify this activity in a super-massive black hole. Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain super-massive black holes at their centers.

St. Jude Medical today announced the first patient implant of an Eon Mini, what they are billing as 'the world’s smallest, longest-lasting, rechargeable neurostimulator' to treat chronic pain of the trunk or limbs and pain from failed back surgery.

Adam Hammond, the 26-year-old patient, was implanted with the Eon Mini neurostimulator which is slightly larger than a U.S. silver dollar. Similar in function and appearance to a cardiac pacemaker, the neurostimulator delivers mild electrical pulses to the spinal cord, which interrupt or mask the pain signals’ transmission to the brain.

Hammond is a former member of the U.S. Army “Golden Knights” Parachute Team. Hammond was skydiving while on leave in 2006 when his parachute did not deploy correctly. He hit the ground in excess of 45 miles an hour.

LONDON, September 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- Review the Site at: http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/sexbomb

Marie Stopes International (MSI), the UK's leading sexual health agency, today launches its Sex Bomb campaign to discover what sex and relationships mean to Britons in this first decade of the 21st century.

LONDON, September 17 /PRNewswire/ -- VocaLink, the payment transaction specialist, today announced that it had signed a partnership agreement with Axway, a leading provider of collaborative business solutions. Under the agreement Axway will provide a gateway for VocaLink's clients to access its Euro services and other VocaLink services.

Axway has developed a very cost-effective thin client gateway, which is downloadable from the internet. This will enable VocaLink to extend its Euro services offering in a cost-effective way and make it an attractive proposition for even smaller users.

GENEVA, Switzerland, September 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced today that patient enrollment has been completed in the REFLEX trial (REbif FLEXible dosing in early multiple sclerosis). This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, international Phase III trial is designed to evaluate the therapeutic benefit of Rebif(R) (interferon beta-1a) on the time to conversion to multiple sclerosis (MS) in people with a first clinical event suggestive of the disease.

LONDON, September 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- With Photo

Scientists from IBM and the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) say their report in Nature shows that microRNAs, those small molecules that are an important regulatory component in the machinery of living cells, have roles that go well beyond what was previously thought.

The work is expected to provide new insights on stem cell differentiation as well as on the role of microRNAs in cell process regulation and the onset of cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes and other diseases. The research is also expected to suggest future avenues for novel diagnostics and the development of therapeutics.

Plants and soils are 'sponges' for atmospheric carbon dioxide but an abnormally warm year can suppress the amount of carbon dioxide soaked up by some grassland ecosystems for up to two years, say the researchers behind a four-year study of sealed, 12-ton containerized grassland plots at DRI, the nonprofit research campus of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

The plants and soils in ecosystems help modulate the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Plants need CO2 to survive, and they absorb most CO2 during spring and summer growing seasons, storing the carbon in their leaves, stems and roots. This stored carbon returns to the soil when plants die, and it is released back into the atmosphere when soil bacteria feed on the dead plants and release CO2.

Nothing would make historic sites more fun to visit than a golf cart that drives itself, navigates around obstacles and lets you concentrate on enjoying the scenery.

If the 'Verdino' takes off, you just may have it. A team of engineers from the University of La Laguna (ULL) in the Canary Islands designed the Verdino and have demonstrated it as a self-steering vehicle that can sense the road surface using a technique called Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), based on the behavior used by ants to find the shortest way between their ant hill and sources of food.

The study’s lead author, Rafael Arnay, from the ULL’s Department of Systems and Automatic Engineering and Computer Architecture and Technology, say that the ACO algorithms are used to resolve “problems of combinatory optimization” and were inspired directly by ants.

In sports, the old saying goes that you can fire a coach but you can't fire the whole team. This doesn't mean the coach has all the blame but you still do what you can do. Sometimes a coach with the wrong style for the players is clearly a wrong fit but most of the time the coach is a scapegoat, according to a new study.

Bringing in a new coach rarely solves the problems, regardless of when it is done, according to a study from Mid Sweden University about hiring and firing coaches in the Swedish Elite Series ice-hockey league during the period 1975/76-2005/06. Despite this fact, coaches are nevertheless very publicly fired. The study shows that it is often a mistake to just replace the coach.