SAO PAULO, Brazil, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

BP announced today that it intends to take a 50 per cent stake in Tropical BioEnergia SA, a joint venture established by Brazilian companies Santelisa Vale and Maeda Group, which is constructing a 435 million liter (115 million gallons) a year ethanol refinery in Edeia, Goias State, Brazil.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080424/SPTH001-a http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080424/SPTH001-b )

The joint venture, in which Santelisa Vale and Maeda Group would each hold 25 per cent, also intends to progress plans to build a second ethanol refinery, investing a total of approximately R$1.66 billion (US$1 billion) in the two refineries.

Monitoring Earth's rising greenhouse gas levels will require a global data collection network 10 times larger than the one currently in place in order to quantify regional progress in emission reductions, according to a new research commentary by University of Colorado and NOAA researchers appearing in the April 25 issue of Science.

The authors, CU-Boulder Research Associate Melinda Marquis and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Pieter Tans, said with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now at 385 parts per million and rising, the need for improved regional greenhouse gas measurements is critical. While the current observation network can measure CO2 fluxes on a continental scale, charting regional emissions where significant mitigation efforts are underway -- like California, New England and European countries -- requires a more densely populated network, they said.

BASINGSTOKE, England, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Shire plc (LSE: SHP) (NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announces today that Michael Rosenblatt M.D. will join the Board as a Non-Executive Director with immediate effect.

Dr Rosenblatt is the Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts. He was previously Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has served in senior research positions at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He was the founding director of the Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

There is a good reason most Americans stink at chess - our unfailing optimism. No matter how bad things get with the economy or the environment or (insert your pet cause here) Americans will always believe that, because we have Christina Aguilera, we beat the pants off of everyone else. Russians, for example, don't think that way. Half of Moscow is populated by women hotter than Christina Aguilera and they're all on a Russian dating site hoping to meet an American mechanic who will get them a green card and raise their kid.

MARICOPA, Arizona, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- FDA provides 510(k) on examination gloves made from U.S.-sourced guayule rubber that is naturally safe for people with Type I latex allergy

Yulex Corporation, a company that produces natural rubber found to be safe for medical devices, received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market the first medical device made from guayule, a desert crop native to the U.S. Southwest. The examination gloves made with patented Yulex(R) natural rubber, and cleared by the FDA, do not contain proteins associated with allergic reactions to latex products from Hevea brasiliensis, and are naturally Hevea latex-free.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080424/LATH031)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

GPS Industries, Inc. (GPSI) (OTC Bulletin Board: GPSN), the only provider of Wi-Fi powered, advertising enhanced GPS systems for golf facilities, resorts and residential communities and owner of golf-related GPS technology patents in 15 countries announced that it licensed its golf related GPS technology patent portfolio to Karrier Communications.

The license settles Karrier Communications involvement in a major patent infringement lawsuit brought by GPS Industries in Dallas federal district court. The License Agreement covers all jurisdictions in which GPS Industries holds patents, including U.S. Patent No. 5,364,093.

LONDON, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- A new social networking site for Arab women, iMatter, was launched last night in Dubai on the MBC1 and MBC4 TV channels. A 60" TV commercial introduced Arab women to iMatter and the headline sponsor of the site, Pantene Shine, and invited them to join an online community designed around their needs. The design and management of the site overcomes a lot of the difficulties sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace often pose for Arab women.

http://imatter.mbc.net/

The site was designed and built for MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Company) by UK agency Leftfield Digital.

PRINCETON, New Jersey and MILAN, Italy, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

-- Two 4-week cohorts will be enrolled to evaluate R7128 1500mg BID in HCV genotypes 2 and 3 prior non-responders and R7128 1000mg BID in HCV genotype 1 treatment-naive patients --

-- Conference call scheduled for Friday, April 25, 2008 at 1:00 PM ET (US) and 7:00 PM CEST (Milan) --

Pharmasset, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRUS) will enroll two additional cohorts in the on-going Phase 1 study protocol to evaluate 4 weeks of combination therapy with R7128. R7128, a prodrug of PSI-6130, is a nucleoside analogue polymerase inhibitor of hepatitis c virus (HCV) that is being developed through Pharmasset's collaboration with Roche.

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- More Than 200 Patient Groups Launch Global Viral Campaign

- http://www.aminumber12.org - http://www.suis-jelenumero12.org - http://www.souonumero12.org - http://www.sonoioilnumero12.org - http://www.soyelnumero12.org - http://www.rakam12.org -

The World Hepatitis Alliance and over 200 patient groups around the world are asking 'Am I Number 12?' (http://www.aminumber12.org) to increase awareness of the shocking statistic that one in 12 people on the planet are living with hepatitis B or hepatitis C and yet the majority of those infected are unaware.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080424/302168-a )

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080424/302168-b )

LAS VEGAS, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

CardioVascular BioTherapeutics, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CVBTE) has entered into an agreement with Mr. Phillip Frey Jr. to form Cardio Derma Clinical Partners (CDCP), an R&D Partnership. Mr. Frey, as sponsor and general partner, will fund a minimum of US$1,000,000 and up to US$5,000,000 of the clinical development of CVBT's wound healing drug candidate.