SAN MATEO, California and LEEDS, England, September 2 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Evaxyx Siperian Services Framework Scales Critical Data Assets across Departments, Divisions, and Geographies for Greater Enterprise-Wide Decision Making

Scientists know that Salmonella and E. coli O157, a strain of E. coli that can cause serious sickness in humans, can spread to salads and vegetables if they are fertilized with contaminated manure, irrigated with contaminated water, or if they come into contact with contaminated products during cutting, washing, packing and preparation processes. However, until now, scientists did not understand how the pathogens managed to bind to the leaves.

In new research presented today at the 21st International ICFMH Symposium 'Food Micro 2008' conference in Aberdeen, a new study shows how some Salmonella bacteria use the long stringy appendages they normally use to help them 'swim' and move about to attach themselves to salad leaves and other vegetables, causing contamination and a health risk.

A man's height is a marker for risk of prostate cancer development but is more strongly linked to progression of the cancer, say a group of British researchers who conducted their own study and also reviewed 58 other published studies.

In the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 12 researchers at four universities in England who studied more than 9,000 men with and without prostate cancer estimated that the risk of developing the disease rises by about six percent for every 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) in height a man is over the shortest group of men in the study.

That means a man who is one foot taller than the shortest person in the study would have a 19 percent increased risk of developing the disease.

Seriously.

Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers.

The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own.

The stunts are "by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter," said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley.

Researchers using two abundant and relatively inexpensive elements, titanium and silicon, have grown wires into a two-dimensional network of branches that resemble flat, rectangular netting, Boston College assistant professor of chemistry Dunwei Wang and his team report in the international edition of the German Chemical Society journal Angewandte Chemie.

By creating nanonets, the team conquered a longstanding engineering challenge in nanotechnology: creating a material that is extremely thin yet maintains its complexity, a structural design large or long enough to efficiently transfer an electrical charge.

The grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is a widely cultivated crop that has been subjected to intensive breeding since the Neolithic period (from ~10,500 to ~6,000 years ago). The domestication of grapevine has undergone a selection for traits important for its cultivation and usage.

The recent publication of the complete grapevine genome has opened the possibility for an in-depth analysis of its content. This sequencing has shown that genes constitute only a very small proportion of complex genomes, with repetitive sequences and (in particular) mobile genetic elements or transposons making up a much larger part. Although transposition is a highly mutagenic event and genomes have developed very efficient mechanisms to control it, transposons have played a major role in the evolution of complex genomes.

Slim Fast, Atkins, Weight Watchers - you've heard of them all. Some people get rich selling books on losing weight, others get rich selling books on how diet plans are bad for you.

A new scientific analysis published in Nutrition Journal says all of the popular programs accomplish their goals (fewer calories) without sacrificing nutrients.

Helen Truby worked with a team of academics from United Kingdom universities who studied the different diet plans. She described how the randomised controlled trial "provides reassuring and important evidence for the effectiveness and nutritional adequacy of the four commercial diets tested."

Researchers from Oregon State University say they have resolved a controversy that cellular biologists have been arguing over for nearly 50 years, with findings that may aid research on everything from birth defects and genetic diseases to the most classic "cell division" issue of them all – cancer.

The exact mechanism that controls how chromosomes in a cell replicate and then divide into two cells, a process fundamental to life, has never been completely pinned down, researchers say. You can find the basics in any high school biology textbook, but the devil is in the details.

DALLAS, September 2 /PRNewswire/ --

With the conclusion of the CONNECTIONS(TM) Europe Summit in Berlin, event host and international research firm Parks Associates announced today the next Summit will take place in Nice, France, on March 31, 2009.

CONNECTIONS(TM) Europe Summit ended on August 29 following a day of strategic sessions with speakers, sponsors, and attendees representing over 60 companies, organizations, and media firms. Parks Associates analysts moderated all sessions, which focused on growth opportunities for new media and entertainment products, services, and applications.

AMSTERDAM, September 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Avantium announced today that it has entered into a master services agreement with Chevron Energy Technology Company for the application of high-throughput technologies in the development of catalysts in the oil and gas field.

Avantium specializes in high-throughput methodologies that enable scientists to conduct parallel experiments on a very small scale, under industrial conditions and at a very high speed.

This agreement allows Chevron Energy Technology Company to access high-throughput methodologies as part of the suite of tools used in the development of catalysts.