PRINCETON, New Jersey, May 15 /PRNewswire/ --

Pharmasset, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRUS), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing novel drugs to treat viral infections, reported unaudited financial results for the second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2008. Pharmasset reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of US$12.1 million, or (US$0.57) per share for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, as compared to a net loss attributable to common stockholders of US$1.7 million, or (US$0.16) per share for the same period in 2007.

MINNEAPOLIS, May 15 /PRNewswire/ --

AGA Medical Corporation ("AGA") announced today it received CE mark approval to market the AMPLATZER(R) Vascular Plug III ("AVP III"). AGA also announced the immediate availability and launch of the device in the European Union. The AVP III further expands the AGA family of occlusion devices designed to embolize, or close, blood vessels and blood vessel malformations in the peripheral vasculature.

"We believe the new AVP III is another strong addition to the AGA vascular plug family," said Franck Gougeon, President and CEO of AGA. "Our goal is to provide physicians with a toolbox of embolization devices that can treat vessels of different types and length and with different flow characteristics."

When atoms form molecules, they share their outer electrons and this creates a negatively charged cloud. The electrons buzz around between the two positively charged nuclei, making it impossible to tell which nucleus they belong to. They are delocalized.

Is this also true for the electrons located closer to the nucleus? And are those electrons spread out too, or do they belong to just one nucleus, i.e. are they localized?

These questions have been hotly debated for the last 50 years, and an international team of scientists says they have an answer - in true quantum theory fashion, they are both right.

MIT engineers have created ultrathin films made of polymers that could be applied to medical devices and other surfaces to control microbe accumulation. The inexpensive, easy-to-produce films could provide a valuable layer of protection for the health care industry by helping to reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections, which take the lives of 100,000 people and cost the United States an estimated $4.5 billion annually.

The researchers found they could control the extent of bacterial adhesion to surfaces by manipulating the mechanical stiffness of polymer films called polyelectrolyte multilayers. Thus, the films could be designed to prevent accumulation of hazardous bacteria or promote growth of desirable bacteria.

“All other factors being equal, mechanical stiffness of material surfaces increases bacterial adhesion,” said Krystyn Van Vliet, the Thomas Lord Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.

High-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, contrary to long-held medical beliefs, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

They reached their conclusion after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with lower sodium diets.

The researchers analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted by the federal government among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. These data were then compared against death records that had been collected by the government through the year 2000. The sample of approximately 8,700 represented American adults who were over 30 years of age at the time of the baseline survey (1988-1994) and were not on a special low-salt diet.

PARIS, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Sanofi-aventis (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) announced today that findings from the landmark ATHENA study showed that Multaq(R) (dronedarone), a potential therapy for the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter, decreased the risk of cardiovascular hospitalisations or death from any cause by a statistically significant 24% (p=0.00000002), meeting the study's primary endpoint. The ATHENA results will be presented at the late breaking clinical trial session of Heart Rhythm 2008, the Heart Rhythm Society's 29th Annual Scientific Sessions in San Francisco, USA.

STEWARTVILLE, Minnesota, May 15 /PRNewswire/ --

Rochester Medical Corporation (Nasdaq: ROCM) thanks PromoCon for the 'Look Good, Feel Good' award made in association with the United Kingdom's Association for Continence Advice (ACA). The aim of this joint ACA/PromoCon award is to spotlight products which are pleasing in appearance and satisfactory in performance and to encourage manufacturers to give attention to the appeal factor at the design stage of new products. The judging panel comprised representatives from Incontact, the Continence & Skin Technology Group, the ACA and PromoCon.

Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain in 1519 with hopes of claiming the wealth of the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, for the Spanish. Two years later the explorer claimed the first European contact with a Pacific island culture when he landed on Guam – 1,500 miles north of the Spice Islands.

Was he the worst explorer ever? No, says North Carolina State University archaeologist Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick. Magellan’s historic circumnavigation of the globe was beset by unusual weather conditions, like El Niño, which eased his passage across the Pacific Ocean but sent him over a thousand miles off course.

Yes, El Niño, bane or boon to global warming debaters, depending on which side you are on. Screwing us all up then too.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Mark Changizi says that actions like catching a football or easily moving through a room full of people requires something more than quickly responding to a situation — it requires our ability to foresee the future.

It takes our brain nearly one-tenth of a second to translate the light that hits our retina into a visual perception of the world around us. While a neural delay of that magnitude may seem minuscule, imagine trying to catch a ball or wade through a store full of people while always perceiving the very recent (one-tenth of a second prior) past. A ball passing within one meter of you and traveling at one meter per second in reality would be roughly six degrees displaced from where you perceive it, and even the slowest forward-moving person can travel at least ten centimeters in a tenth of a second.

REHOVOT, Israel, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Objet Geometries Ltd. (http://www.2objet.com), the innovation leader in 3-D printing, today announced that its revolutionary Connex500(TM) system has been recognized with the red dot award (http://www.red-dot.de), one of the highest and most coveted honors for product design and innovation worldwide. The Connex500(TM) is the first-ever system to allow printing of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties simultaneously.

(Photo: Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071115/281960 )

(Logo: Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080514/305187 )