CALGARY, December 20 /PRNewswire/ --

- Open-Hole Multi-Stage Completion Technology a Huge Success

Packers Plus recently completed a very successful open hole multi-stage frac in China.

We completed a 5 stage multi-stage completion in China for a new client earlier this year, said Packers Plus International Operations General Manager, Jim Athans. It was a text book job and the entire well operation went very smoothly. The well has exceeded the customer's expectations.

This is the first open-hole multi-stage completion that has been completed for this customer and because of the success of this job, there is a potential for more work in this region, said Athans.

We haven't always been warming.  The circle of climate change has made 90% of the planet's history ice ages and many of those swings were sudden and dramatic.  And it could happen that way again, within decades, says a new government report.

It contends that seas could rise rapidly if melting of polar ice continues to outrun recent projections and that an ongoing drought in the U.S. west could be the start of permanent drying for the region. Commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the report was authored by researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and other leading institutions. It was released at this week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union. 

It sounds like a B movie starring Adrienne Barbeau (oops, that's "Amazon Women In The Avacado Jungle Of Death") but this international team of researchers have instead been collecting imaging data on the Soufriere Hills Volcano in Montserrat to understand the internal structure of the volcano and how and when it erupts. 

"Using land-based measurement, we can see that over the time periods when the magma is erupting, the ground surface deflates into a bowl of subsidence and when the magma is sealed underground, the ground surface inflates like a balloon," says Barry Voight, professor emeritus of geosciences, Penn State. "The interesting thing is that much more magma is erupting than appears represented by the subsiding bowl." 

A research team led by Professor Michael Chazan, director of the University of Toronto's Archaeology Centre, has discovered the earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

Stone tools found at the bottom level of the cave — believed to be 2 million years old — show that human ancestors were in the cave earlier than ever thought before. Geological evidence indicates that these tools were left in the cave and not washed into the site from the outside world.

Archaeological investigations of the Wonderwerk cave — a South African National Heritage site due to its role in discovering the human and environmental history of the area — began in the 1940s and research continues to this day.

Deep inside the Frasassi cave system in Italy and more than 1,600 feet below the Earth's surface, divers found filamentous ropes of microbes growing in the cold water, according to a team of Penn State researchers. 

The Frasassi cave system is located north of Rome and south of Venice in the Marche region. These limestone caves are like New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns and Lechuguilla Cave, but in those caves, sulfur entered the caves from oil and gas reserves, while in Italy, the sulfur source is a thick gypsum layer below. Having sulfur in the environment allows sulfur-using organisms to grow.

Bursera simaruba has always been one of my favourite tree species. It’s a dry-season deciduous tree with compound leaves and a coppery peeling outer bark and a green (presumably photosynthetic) inner bark.  It’s a conspicuous element of tropical dry forests in Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and parts of southern Florida (where they call it the ‘gumbo limbo’ tree).  In all these places it’s the only representative of its genus.  In my experience, Bursera was Bursera simaruba, so I was surprised when I came across a Bursera that was grown from seed collected in Costa Rica that was obviously not B. simaruba. 

SAN JOSE, California, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- 'A Truly Super Server', 'Truly the Best of the Best'

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI), a leader in application-optimized, high performance server solutions, today announced that GCN (Government Computer News) has rated the Supermicro SuperServer 6015W-NTR the overall Best Product of 2008. GCN describes the SuperServer as a truly super server and truly the best of the best for the year. Based on GCN Lab test results in September, the 6015W-NTR earned the top honor with straight A's and proved superior to competitive product offerings from HP, Dell and Fujitsu on both performance and value.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081219/AQF504)

TORONTO, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- Available For Large-scale Testing of Populations to Identify Infected Carriers

Amorfix Life Sciences, a company focused on treatments and diagnostics for brain wasting diseases, today announced it achieved 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity in a second blinded trial of human blood samples using its EP-vCJD(TM) blood test in collaboration with the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in the United Kingdom.

ROSEVILLE, California, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- Understanding and Treatments of Cancer, Hepatitis, Diabetes, AIDS, Autism, Blood Disorders, Infections from bacteria and viruses, and any disease known to man can take a quantum leap with the Newly Discovered 24 Human DNA Sequences found in 64 DNAs. 'Information about the 24 DNA Sequences is available for researchers and scientist to view,' said Bob Ainuu Afamasaga.

The Associated Press's Richard Alonso-Zaldivar wrote, 'The president-elect has indicated his support for both advancing 'personalized medicine' and increasing [research] funding,' said Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat from Rhode Island, who has introduced legislation in the House that builds on Obama's direction.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- MoU Signed Between Day Care Surgical Hospitals of Paris and Sharjah, Setting New Trends in Globalization of Healthcare and Medical Tourism

The International Institute of Ambulatory Surgery (IIAmbS), a pacesetter of general and laparoscopic day surgery, based in Paris and an approaching healthcare institute, Sharjah Corniche Hospital, in UAE announced the signing of Memorandum of Understanding recently to form a new entity of encouraging French medical care and services in UAE.