BERLIN, August 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Germany's recently approved "climate package" is its latest step in securing the country's position as a leading investment location in renewable energies. "The reforms maintain attractive feed-in tariffs and strengthen the legal framework for energy-efficiency investments, therefore adding to Germany's already inviting investment conditions in photovoltaic (PV) energy," says David Wortmann, Director of the Renewable Energies and Resources team at Invest in Germany. Invest in Germany will be outlining the country's investment advantages at the 23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (PVSEC), September 1 - 5, 2008 in Valencia, Spain.

If Leopold de Rothschild, Sir Winston Churchill, or the 5th Earl of Lonsdale were alive today their supreme goal would be to eliminate stress from the world with a nice smoke.

At the Tobacco Republic, in Loomis, California, such a place exists.

In this sort of separate universe where the motto is "Every cigar is like a mini vacation," one of the owners, Ron, tells the story of his first experience with cigars, in his usual calm demeanor, which can be fittingly compared to the alluring effect of cigar smoke.

Engineers at Georgia Tech have used skin cells to create artificial bones that mimic the ability of natural bone to blend into other tissues such as tendons or ligaments. The artificial bones display a gradual change from bone to softer tissue rather than the sudden shift of previously developed artificial tissue, providing better integration with the body and allowing them to handle weight more successfully.

"One of the biggest challenges in regenerative medicine is to have a graded continuous interface, because anatomically that's how the majority of tissues appear and there are studies that strongly suggest that the graded interface provides better integration and load transfer," said Andres Garcia, professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Researchers at the Ruhr University in Bochum (RUB) say they have discovered the secret of electron heating in low temperature plasmas.

The Bochum researchers at the Center of Excellence “Plasma Science and Technology” (CPST) at the Ruhr University say this is the answer to a question which has been puzzling scientists for decades; why the electrons in such plasmas are so hot.

The answer: the non-linear behavior of the boundary sheath causes the electric current flowing in the plasma to oscillate. This results in an increase of the electrical current, and thus in the heating of the plasma. This previously unknown mechanism called “non-linear electron resonance heating” is the subject of a report by researchers in Physical Review Letters.

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered the earliest form of human blood stem cells and deciphered the mechanism by which these embryonic stem cells replicate and grow. They also found a surprising biological marker that pinpoints these stem cells, which serve as the progenitors for red blood cells and lymphocytes.

The research reported today used federally approved embryonic stem cell lines.

The biochemical marker, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), is well known for its role in the regulation of blood pressure, blood vessel growth, and inflammation. ACE inhibitors are already widely used to treat hypertension and congestive heart failure, and the findings are, the researchers say, likely to hold promise for developing new treatments for heart diseases, anemias, leukemia and other blood cancers, and autoimmune diseases because they show for the first time that ACE plays a fundamental role in the very early growth and development of human blood cells.

LONDON, August 29 /PRNewswire/ --

- Acquisition of Ciao will expand Live Search offering in Europe.

Microsoft Corp today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Greenfield Online Inc, owner of Ciao GmbH, one of Europe's leading price comparison, shopping and consumer reviews sites, in a move that will further extend Microsoft's search and e-commerce services in Europe. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Greenfield Online for $17.50 (US) per share in a transaction valued at approximately $486 million (US).

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

Radiation from the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 likely rearranged chromosomes in some survivors who later developed papillary thyroid cancer as adults, according to Japanese researchers.

Writing in Cancer Research, the scientists report that subjects who lived close to the blast sites, were comparably young at the time, and developed the cancer quickly once they reached adulthood, were likely to have a chromosomal rearrangement known as RET/PTC that is not very frequent in adults who develop the disease.

Women with depression may be much more likely than men to get relief from a commonly used, inexpensive antidepressant drug called citalopram, available both as a generic drug and under the brand name Celexa, a new national study finds. But many members of both sexes may find that it helps ease their depression symptoms.

The persistence of a gender difference in response to the drug — even after the researchers accounted for many complicating factors — suggests that there's a real biological difference in the way the medication affects women compared with men. The reasons for that difference are still unclear, but further studies are now examining hormonal variations that may play a role.

Researchers from the University of Michigan Depression Center and their colleagues from around the country tested the drug's ability to help depression patients achieve remission, or total relief from their symptoms, in a multi-year study called STAR*D.

Mosquito traps that reek like latrines are so 2007, thanks to a University of California, Davis research team led by chemical ecologist Walter Leal that have discovered a low-cost, easy-to-prepare attractant that lures blood-fed mosquitoes without making humans hold their noses.

The synthetic mixture, containing compounds trimethylamine and nonanal in low doses, is just as enticing to Culex mosquitoes as the current attractants, Leal said, but this one is odorless to humans.

The research could play a key role in surveillance and control programs for Culex species, which transmit such diseases as West Nile virus, encephalitis and lymphatic filariasis.

Andrew Scholey, Ph.D., professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia has led a research study on the effects of chewing gum on stress relief and focus and concentration. The study found that chewing gum helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among individuals in a laboratory setting.

The study examined whether chewing gum is capable of reducing induced anxiety and/or acute psychological stress while participants performed a battery of 'multi-tasking' activities. The use of chewing gum was associated with higher alertness, reduced anxiety and stress, and improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.