A new study may explain why women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene face up to an 85 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer; researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that BRCA1 plays a role in regulating breast stem cells, the small number of cells that might develop into cancers.

The study, in mice and in human breast cancer cells, found that BRCA1 is involved in the stem cells differentiating into other breast tissue cells. When BRCA1 is missing, the stem cells accumulate unregulated and develop into cancer.

“Our data suggest that an important reason women with BRCA1 mutations get breast cancer is that BRCA1 is directly involved in the regulation of normal breast stem cells. In these women, loss of BRCA1 function results in the proliferation of breast stem cells. Since we believe that breast cancer may originate in these cells, this explains why these women have such a high incidence of breast cancer,” said senior study author Max S. Wicha, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Oncology and director of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Political party affiliation has little bearing on the number of “green” actions people take, a new study by Porter Novelli and George Mason University shows.

According to the survey of more than 11,000 American adults and nearly 1,000 of their children, Democrats and Republicans differ only slightly when it comes to taking actions to protect the environment, despite great differences in their perceptions of danger related to global warming.

While Democrats were almost twice as likely as Republicans to believe that global warming is a serious problem and a threat to all life on the planet, on average they perform only about 15 percent more “green” actions than Republicans. For example, 65 percent of those surveyed who always vote Republican and 71 percent of those who always vote Democrat said they are actively reducing energy use in their homes.

PARIS, January 31 /PRNewswire/ -- On 24 January, in the course of an extraordinary show, Passionata unveiled its new image and the highly glamorous advertising campaign devised by David LaChapelle. A hot spectacle presented by Alain Prost, General Director of Chantelle's Group, and Adeline Desjonqueres, International Director of Passionata's brand : four Crazy Horse mythical scenes and an original creation staging the latest Passionata Lingerie sets worn by gorgeous creatures endowed with stupendous figures and knowing smiles...

LONDON, January 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to news today that 1 million prescriptions per year are now made for obesity drugs, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) has called for more awareness about the role played by community pharmacy.

Pharmacists are expert healthcare professionals and have a major role to play in public health - they are based in every community and offer advice, support and clinical treatment for a range of conditions, including obesity.

David Pruce, The RPSGB's Director of Practice and Quality Improvement, says:

UTRECHT, Netherlands, and RESTON, Virginia, January 31 /PRNewswire/ --

- Multi-Modal Fusion Platform to Include Leading Fingerprint Technology

WCC Smart Search & Match, a leading provider of high-performance search and match software, today announced its collaboration with SecuGen, a leader in optical fingerprint recognition technology for biometric identification and authentication. SecuGen has developed fast, rugged and accurate fingerprint readers and software, which will provide enhanced identification and authentication for WCC's ELISE ID - The Platform for Multi-Modal Fusion.

Traditional ecosystems in which communities of plants and animals have co-evolved and are interdependent are increasingly rare, due to human-induced ecosystem changes. As a result, historical assessments of ecosystem health are often inaccurate.

A team of scientists present a new approach to management efforts in a paper posted this week on Frontiers e-View. The researchers suggest that such efforts should focus less on restoring ecosystems to their original state and more on sustaining new, healthy ecosystems that are resilient to further environmental change.

Timothy R. Seastedt (University of Colorado at Boulder), Richard J. Hobbs (Murdoch University in Australia) and Katharine N. Suding (University of California at Irvine) looked at ecosystem management studies from the past 12 years to develop a new approach to managing ecosystems in the face of increasing human impacts.

Most of the Earth’s listed active volcanoes are located at the borders between two tectonic plates, where upsurge of magma from the mantle is facilitated.

When these magmatic uprisings occur at a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate plunges under another, they give rise to volcanic massifs such as the Andes cordillera. Other volcanic chains are formed along oceanic ridges, submarine regions of ocean-floor extension.

However, some volcanoes are governed by a completely different mechanism: intraplate volcanism. As their name suggests, these volcanic constructions appear in the very centre of tectonic plates. Scientists now know that some of them, such as the Hawaii-Emperor archipelago or Reunion Island, result from magmatic upsurges generated at the boundary between the Earth’s core and mantle situated 2 900 km deep.

Others, such as those of the central Pacific, display different characteristics. They are anomalous, in their simultaneously high number, unusually high concentration and short life-span and prompt scientists to look for hypotheses other than a deep-mantle plume to explain the causes of intraplate volcanism.

DALLAS, January 31 /PRNewswire/ --

Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (NYSE: ACS) today announced it will provide a contactless ticketing system to the city of Riga, Latvia, with the municipality's wholly owned transit operator, Rigas Satiksme. No financial details were disclosed for the 13-year contract.

ACS will design and implement a smart card-based ticketing system using contactless cards and tickets for Rigas Satiksme's fleet of 460 buses, 322 trolleys, and 252 tramway cars. ACS and Rigas Satiksme will then operate the system under the city's oversight.

AMSTERDAM, January 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncology focused biopharmaceutical product development company Kiadis Pharma announced today that it has successfully finalized its Rhitol(TM) Phase II clinical trial with the last patient completing its six month treatment cycle. Rhitol(TM) is evaluated as treatment for patients with extensive chronic Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) intolerant or resistant to standard immunosuppressive treatment.

ZURICH, Switzerland, January 31 /PRNewswire/ --

- Barix to implement Digigram ES-100/spkr solution into Exstreamer IP audio decoders, bringing EtherSound(TM) technology to new markets

Barix AG, a pioneer in IP-based audio, intercom, monitoring and control, today announced that it is partnering with Digigram to bring EtherSound(TM) technology, a widely-used digital audio transport technology developed by Digigram, to new markets including security, transportation and other public address applications. Digigram has recognized Barix as a launch partner for the technology, with Barix implementing Digigram's ES-100/spkr technology within its successful Exstreamer IP audio decoder and IPAM modules for OEM partnerships.