CLEVELAND, December 30 /PRNewswire/ --

American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Recycled Paper Greetings, Inc.

American Greetings has agreed to purchase Recycled Paper Greetings, Inc. (Recycled Paper). Recycled Paper is a Chicago-based preeminent creator and designer of humorous greeting cards with annual net sales of approximately US$80 million. Recycled Paper's humor cards are distributed primarily through mass retail partners, drug stores and specialty retail stores. The transaction is subject to various closing conditions including a Chapter 11 reorganization process being successfully completed for Recycled Paper and other closing conditions.

HATBORO, Pennsylvania and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, December 30 /PRNewswire/ --

The Sports Network (TSN) and Contec Innovations (TSX.V: BUZ.V) jointly announced today the upcoming availability of their new global mobile sports service.

This service is now being readied for launch in early 2009. As 2008 comes to a close, both TSN and Contec are already engaging partners, customers and sponsors interested in deploying the new mobile services that have graduated from the drawing board to a level of readiness for each participant given their respective role, stated Mickey Charles, President and CEO of TSN. Dialogue is underway from North America to the Far East as we continue, with Contec, to expand our entry into the mobile community on a world-wide basis.

LONDON, December 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Stubbing Out Your 5 a Day Habit Could Help You Give Your Child GBP15,500 on Their 18th Birthday

Leading Child Trust Fund provider, The Children's Mutual (http://www.thechildrensmutual.co.uk) is encouraging all parents who decide to give up smoking as their New Year's resolution to consider putting the money that they will save towards their children's futures.

WAALWIJK, The Netherlands, December 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology company IAI in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, a subsidiary of the stock listed company DOCDATA N.V. in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, will supply four BookMaster One systems for the personalisation of passports to a country in Europe.

IAI's principal is a local subsidiary of 3M Company located in St. Paul (Minneapolis, USA). The 3M subsidiary will acquire the systems within the framework of a government order. At request of the principal, IAI will not announce which European country it concerns.

Researchers in Great Britain and the United States have imaged the first high definition imprints that dolphin sounds make in water.   They consider it a real breakthrough in deciphering dolphin language.

Certain sounds made by dolphins have long been suspected to represent language but the complexity of the sounds has made their analysis difficult. Previous techniques, using the spectrograph, display cetacean (dolphins, whales and porpoises) sounds only as graphs of frequency and amplitude.

Religious people have more self-control than non-religious counterparts, says a study by University of Miami professor of Psychology Michael McCullough and he says this is why religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals and also might help explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression, and longer lives.

Using tiny gold particles and infrared light, researchers have developed a drug-delivery system that allows multiple drugs to be released in a controlled fashion.  Such a system could one day be used to provide more control when battling diseases commonly treated with more than one drug, according to the researchers.

Delivery devices already exist that can release two drugs, but the timing of the release must be built into the device — it cannot be controlled from outside the body. The new system is controlled externally and theoretically could deliver up to three or four drugs. 

The new technique takes advantage of the fact that when gold nanoparticles are exposed to infrared light, they melt and release drug payloads attached to their surfaces. 

While in some cases a child with ADHD cannot function without medication, there is growing concern about the health risks and side effects associated with the common ADHD medications, including mood swings, insomnia, tics, slowed growth and heart problems. In 2006 the FDA required manufacturers to place warning labels on ADHD medications, listing the potential serious health risks. 

These high risks and growing concerns are fueling parents' search for alternatives that may be safer for their kids.

The Transcendental Meditation technique may be an effective and safe non-pharmaceutical aid for treating ADHD, according to a study published in Current Issues in Education.

Lockheed Martin rolled out a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant of the F-35 Lightning II fighter, called F-35AF-1, which joins three weight-optimized F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing variants currently undergoing testing. The aircraft are structurally identical to the F-35s that will be delivered to armed services beginning in 2010.

The first F-35A, known as AA-1, has completed 69 flights, and has a production-representative external shape and internal systems. Unlike AF-1 and the other F-35 test aircraft, AA-1's internal structure was designed before a 2004 weight-savings program resulted in structural revisions to all three F-35 variants.

Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that a molecule implicated in leukemia and lung cancer is also important in muscle repair and in a muscle cancer that strikes mainly children. 

The study shows that immature muscle cells require the molecule, called miR-29, to become mature, and that the molecule is nearly missing in cells from rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer caused by the proliferation of immature muscle cells. 

Cells from human rhabdomyosarcoma tumors showed levels of the molecule that were 10 percent or less of those in normal muscle cells. Artificially raising the level of the molecule in the cancer cells cut their growth by half and caused them to begin maturing, slowing down tumor growth.