Despite the regular onslaught of mixed messages from those in scientific research land, I still take a multivitamin most days. (Thanks, Mom, for starting me off young with those delicious Flinstone Kids niblets of nutrition.)

Placebo effect? I don't know. I do know that I feel better when I remember to take my multivitamin, iron and vitamin D supplements, and the occasional fish oil horse pill. But will it help me in the long run with any aspect of my health?

REDMOND, Washington, December 31 /PRNewswire/ --

- Sentencing marks the culmination of a global investigation and demonstrates concrete action by the Chinese government to protect intellectual property rights.

Well, it's now a merry Christmas for everyone except Nicholas Cage. The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) announced Monday that as of Christmas Eve, 2008, they've completed the destruction of all munitions carrying VX gas in the possession of the U.S. Army. Unfortunately for Mr. Cage, this means that he's far less likely to be called upon to save San Francisco from rockets armed with the deadly gas by breaking into the former prison on Alcatraz Island aided by Sean Connery, as he proved he could do in Micheal Bay's 1996 film, The Rock.

TOKYO and INDIANAPOLIS, December 31 /PRNewswire/ --

Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited (TSE: 4568) and Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) today confirmed that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee (CRDAC) will review prasugrel during an advisory committee hearing on February 3, 2009. Prasugrel is an investigational antiplatelet agent for the treatment of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) who are being managed with an artery-opening procedure known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which is usually followed by the placement of a stent to help keep the artery open.

WIESBADEN, Germany, December 31 /PRNewswire/ --

- President and COO of Panasonic Europe Passed Away on 26 December

Panasonic Europe is deeply saddened and distressed about the bereavement of its President and Chief Operating Officer Joachim Reinhart who passed away on 26 December 2008 after a short period of serious illness.

HAIFA, Israel, December 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Oil Refineries Ltd. (TASE: ORL.TA) (the Company), Israel's largest oil refiner, announced today that on December 30, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Company's Shareholders convened.

New computer visualization technology developed by the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing has helped astrophysicists understand that gravity plays a larger role than previously thought in deep space's vast, star-forming molecular clouds.

The insight is being illustrated in Nature's online version through new three-dimensional Portable Document Format (PDF) technology that will allow readers to view the article's key graphics using free PDF software already commonly found on computers.

An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.



The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.

Antibiotics may be overprescribed in kids because of concern by helicopter parents and worries about malpractice lawsuits, but in at least one instance they are saving a lot of lives - as a preventive measure to patients in intensive care units (ICUs).

This from a study involving nearly sixthousand Dutch patients in thirteen hospitals. Researchers at University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht have published their findings in an article in The New England Journal of Medicine. 

EVANSTON, Illinois, December 30 /PRNewswire/ --

Amid daily headlines of civil war, suicide attacks, ethnic violence and social unrest emerges some welcome positive news.

The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International -- a humanitarian service organization dedicated to world peace and understanding -- has awarded seven Africans to study peacemaking and conflict resolution at the Rotary Centers for International Studies located at leading universities in England, Japan, Australia, Argentina, and the United States.

The African fellows in the 2008-10 class hail from Somalia, Zambia, Gambia, Nigeria, Togo, Kenya and Sierra Leone.