LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time ever, experts in bariatric surgery gave a lecture on how weight loss surgery for morbidly obese patients can cure type 2 diabetes, at the Diabetes UK Annual Professional Conference in Glasgow.

'The changing face of diabetes', was the theme for the 2009 conference, introducing the new developments in bariatric research and clinical practice for the future.

The session entitled Bariatric surgery as a cure for diabetes: can we stomach it? Was one of only three plenary sessions throughout this year's conference, and tackled integrating obesity management into diabetes care, with both diabetic and surgical expert views.

A shock hit NASA's Mission Madness tournament when the fight between the SPB balloon mission and the MER rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" escalated to unexpected levels. And now you can find out just how this happened. 'Mission Madness' is a NASA Edge-run voting contest where the public gets to vote for their favorite mission, in a series of 1-on-1 brackets leading to the final winner.

IRVINE, California and LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Endeavors' application virtualization and streaming functionality offered in connection with Oracle Beehive 30-day trial offer

Endeavors Technologies, the pioneer of application streaming and virtualization technology, today announced that Application Jukebox, the company's next-generation application streaming and virtualization platform, now supports Oracle(R) Beehive - a unified collaboration platform built for the enterprise.

LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Northern Trust has been selected to provide fund administration services for the fund platform managed by Earth Capital Partners (ECP), a new investment business with a specialist focus on environmental investment, and an objective to raise US$5bn into the fund platform over the next five years.

The new platform has the opportunity to launch a series of closed end investment vehicles invested in such sustainable projects as solar power, waste-to-energy, southern hemisphere agriculture and may also provide financial backing for companies developing new environmental technologies.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, California and AMSTERDAM, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Agendia, a world leader in molecular cancer diagnostics, today announced that the Company is scheduled to present at the 16th Anniversary Future Leaders in the Biotech Industry Conference on Thursday, April 2, 2009. Presented by BioCentury and Thomson Reuters, the Future Leaders conference has built a reputation as a major biotech investment event, matching strong companies with a select group of specialized institutional investors, investment bankers, sellside/buyside analysts, and pharmaceutical licensing executives.

LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Two-thirds of UK doctors are opposed to the legalisation of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, according to research set to be published on Wednesday 25 March in Palliative Medicine.

A change in the law to legalise euthanasia is supported by 34% of doctors (general public: 82%), with 35% backing physician-assisted suicide (general public: 62%). The questions mirror those asked in the British Social Attitudes survey in 2007, making this the first direct comparison between members of the public and doctors.

More than 3,700 doctors replied to the survey, which was commissioned by a group of UK charities in response to the House of Lords' 2005 select committee report on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill.

ABBOTT PARK, Illinois, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced the initiation of the next phase of the ABSORB clinical trial to evaluate the safety and performance of the company's fully bioabsorbable drug eluting coronary stent. This second phase of the ABSORB clinical trial will enroll approximately 80 patients at 10 centers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and will incorporate device enhancements designed to improve deliverability and vessel support. The first patient was enrolled into the second stage of the ABSORB clinical trial at Onze Lieve Vrouw Ziekenhuis Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, by Bernard De Bruyne, M.D., Ph.D.

SOUTHAMPTON, England, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- VA106483 Completes Phase IIa Trial and VA111913 Completes Phase I Dosing

Vantia Therapeutics, a company focusing on first-in-class therapies for unmet medical needs, announces further clinical trial progress with its two lead development compounds, VA106483 for nocturia associated with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and VA111913 for dysmenorrhoea. The Phase IIa trial of VA106483 has completed, while dosing is complete in the Phase I trial of VA111913. With this news and developments in Vantia's preclinical pipeline, the company is continuing to generate value from its extensive library of small molecule antagonists of hormones and proteases.

LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Conference Attendees Will Have Access to the Latest Information on Communication Technologies From 29 Leading Component Manufacturers

SUNNYVALE, California, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Cepheid (Nasdaq: CPHD) today announced details of technology expected to revolutionize the speed of diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) and the resistance to common drug treatment for the disease.

The new test technology, developed in partnership with Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), and funded by the National Institute of Allergy Infectious Diseases (NIAID), will leverage the power of Cepheid's GeneXpert(R) System to deliver a highly accurate diagnosis of the disease in less than two hours.