NEWCASTLE, England, January 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Amidst Reports of Britain's Alarming Rise in Obesity Rates, a Major UK Pharmacy Chain has Teamed up With Australia's Leading Slimming Brand in a bid to Help Britain Battle the Bulge

Already hugely successful in Australia, Celebrity Slim's meal-replacement programme has just been launched in the UK, and represents a healthy, convenient, and tasty way to lose weight fast.

This product launch has come at a time in which obesity rates have soared since the turn of the century and could lead to as many as 13 million adults - one in three - being classed as obese by 2012, scientists from University College London (UCL) estimate.

It seems obvious, right?   If you are around people who don't think much of you, over time you are more inclined to think less of yourself.  That's self esteem.

Looking at yourself in the mirror every morning, you never think to question whether the person you see is actually you but our interaction with others impacts that also, claims a PLoS ONE study by Dr Manos Tsakiris in Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London.   He challenges this common-sense notion about our own self image and  says that the image we hold of our own face can actually change through shared experiences with other people's faces. 

Herbicide use should increase crop yields, that's the whole point, and herbicides and pesticides do that, given the output in food production that has matched the population increases over the last two centuries.  But there may be a problem in how some herbicides impact reproduction and tests may not be accounting for that, says a study in the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Scientists can now call up stem cell troops to repair the body using new drug combinations.  They have basically 'tricked' bone marrow into releasing extra adult stem cells into the bloodstream, a technique that they hope could one day be used to repair heart damage or mend a broken bone, according to a new study published today in Cell Stem Cell. 

A study published in Cancer Prevention Research identifies components of black raspberries with chemopreventive potential.  Researchers at the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center found that anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids in black raspberries, inhibited growth and stimulated apoptosis in the esophagus of rats treated with an esophageal carcinogen. 

If you read almost any science blog other than mine, you're probably aware of Brown University biologist Ken Miller's smackdown of Intelligent Design (ID) shill Casey Luskin, posted on Carl Zimmer's Loom: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

At issue is the tired old concept of irreducible complexity, and it's amazing that after all this time, many ID advocates don't understand what the original point of arguing irreducible complexity was. ID advocate Michael Behe, in various publications including his book Darwin's Black Box basically argued that there are molecular systems inside of cells that, even in principle could not have been produced by evolution - systems like the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade. Such systems, according to Behe, are irreducibly complex - they need all of their parts in order to function, and if you're missing any parts, you have a non-functional system. Thus, without all of the parts there is nothing functional for natural selection to act on.

In other words, the only way evolution could produce a system like the blood clotting cascade would be to have all of the relevant genes suddenly appear at one time by mutation - an event improbable to the point of impossibility (which is one thing ID advocates and evolutionary biologists agree on).

Roystonea, the royal palms, are the most striking palms in the Caribbean, and arguably, in the world (though, granted, a talipot palm in flower comes a close second). The name of the genus was coined by Orator F. Cook, an American botanist, in 1900, in honour of Roy Stone, an American general involved in the capture of Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American war.

ATLANTA, January 6 /PRNewswire/ --

Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) today announced results for its fiscal second quarter ended November 30, 2008. For the second quarter, revenues grew 30 percent to US$401.1 million compared to US$308.8 million in the prior year. Diluted earnings per share grew 25 percent to US$0.60 compared to US$0.48 in the prior year quarter.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010221/ATW031LOGO )

COLOMBES, France, January 6 /PRNewswire/ --

- Creation of a Services Division

ENTREPOSE Contracting (ISIN FR0010204321) today announced the acquisition of CHALLENGER Special Oil Services and the creation of a services division within the group.

For over 25 years, CHALLENGER has provided expertise and services to the oil and gas industry by participating in research studies and proposing solutions for the start-up, maintenance and repair of oil, gas and petrochemical pipelines. Active worldwide, the Paris-based company has two branches in Nigeria and Malaysia and provides both onshore and offshore services to major oil and natural gas companies, including Total, BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Amoco, Petronas, Gaz de France and QatarGas.

Today the world faces countless obstacles and afflictions; AIDS, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s are a few of the widespread conditions that significantly affect the global population. But what about less serious diseases?  In the US, most of us can live without fear of contracting malaria or dying from the flu, but we are still plagued by chronic illnesses that earn less attention from the scientific, medical and public community because their “threat level” is low. Asthma is one of these illnesses, without a cure but still a prevalent problem both in the US and worldwide.