MONTREAL, April 8 /PRNewswire/ --

Messaging Architects, the global expert in email risk management and compliance, recently announced the appointment of Alain Heurtebise as Vice-President for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). He will be based in Paris, France.

Through a network of Distributors/Resellers, Messaging Architects has already built a 200+ customer base in EMEA. Heurtebise will have full responsibility for managing Messaging Architects' current activity and building the business for Messaging Architects across the entire region, including sales and channel strategy, and market expansion.

'Herbal' doesn't always mean safe and buying diet pills on the internet seems like a higher order of risky behavior but people still do it.   Herbal supplement use has continued to rise as people have become aware that some natural products may be superior to synthetic ones, meaning a boost in reported herbal supplement use from 2.5% of people in 1990 to 18.6% in 2002.   

Herbal supplements with references to "traditional medicine" or "natural components" are widely exempt from FDA regulation because they don't contain ingredients in quantities that can do any harm but a new study tackles Chinese diet capsules that claimed to be purely herbal but nonetheless contain synthetic substances in concentrations far above the therapeutic range and may be a cause of poisoning.

A new study conducted at Mayo Clinic and published in the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings reports that one in six patients receiving therapeutic doses of certain drugs for Parkinson's disease develops new-onset, potentially destructive behaviors, notably compulsive gambling or hypersexuality.

That may make grandpa a lot more interesting in doses but hedonistic, destructive behavior can be life-altering for the family members no amused by those antics, like the wife who finds her house mortgaged to have gambling money.

Why are kids in  Italian prisons, you might be asking?   Italian law says sending kids to prison is a lot less traumatic than being away from their criminal mothers.   Italian fathers must be busy boun giorno-ing foreign women on the streets.   Whatever the reason,  mothers sentenced to prison or awaiting trial can bring their children and live in specific 'nest' areas of the jail. 

Physicians of the Institute of Paediatric Clinic of the Catholic University of Rome – Policlinico Agostino Gemelli entered the Casa di reclusione di Roma Rebibbia, the main prison of Rome, where the majority of these children live, to assess their health conditions. The paper has been published on the last issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.

The Earth's original atmosphere held very little oxygen. This began to change around 2.4 billion years ago when oxygen levels increased dramatically during what scientists call the "Great Oxidation Event." The cause of this event has puzzled scientists, but researchers writing in Nature* have found indications in ancient sedimentary rocks that it may have been linked to a drop in the level of dissolved nickel in seawater.

"The Great Oxidation Event is what irreversibly changed surface environments on Earth and ultimately made advanced life possible," says research team member Dominic Papineau of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory. "It was a major turning point in the evolution of our planet, and we are getting closer to understanding how it occurred." 

The problem of how to model a biological system has been staring me in the face every day in recent months, and I need a place to indulge in baseless speculation. So if you stick around here at Adaptive Complexity for the next few weeks, you are going to get treated to a dose of half-baked, semi-coherent (at best), partially thought-out musings on what it takes to model a biological system.

There isn't a lot that can pull me away from a hockey game.* Such is the power of Wired magazine, and really freaking cool science.

When people see the optical illusion known as "the hollow mask" - a concave face, like the back side of a hollow mask - they see a normal convex face, according to a Wired Science post (see photo below). But the approximately 1 percent of the population with schizophrenia see the concave face.

Nearly half of all hayfever sufferers are more irritable while they are suffering from hayfever symptoms and that impacts their relationships, according to a new survey published today.[1]  The survey suggests that up to 2 million people with hayfever[2] feel less affectionate in relationships and up to 600,000 people with hayfever have had an argument due to their hayfever symptoms. Even potential new relationships are at risk, with 6% having cancelled a date or prior arrangement because of their symptoms and 75% feeling self conscious about their appearance.(*)

The findings, announced today, arose from a survey of 787 people with hayfever conducted by YouGov on behalf of Schering-Plough last summer.

One more book to pile on my to-read list. Via Carl Zimmer (go follow the link for a bloggingheads video interview), a fascinating book on bioengineering, Learning to Fly, by Rob Carlson, is coming out this fall.

He has some insightful thoughts:

The past few months, it has been difficult to watch TV, browse the internet or any other form of media viewing without some mention of the Octamom. If you are wondering why the villain from Spiderman 2 is on TV so much, then you need to readjust your POV.

In January, Nadya “octamom” Suleman made history when she gave birth to octuplets with the help of in-vitro fertilization (IVF).