WASHINGTON, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Wenonah Hauter of Food Water Watch, an international consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., along with Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians and the Blue Planet Project and representatives of the Latin American network Red VIDA and the Asian organization Focus on the Global South, will be available to speak to the media by telephone on Wednesday, March 11 about their plans to protest the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul. Food Water Watch, Council of Canadians and the Blue Planet Project, Red VIDA, and Focus on the Global South are members of an international coalition that has come together to defend the human right to water.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Double Fusion, the world's most powerful in-game and multi-platform advertising network, has promoted Noam Korin to Vice President of Advertising Sales, Europe. In his new role, Korin will lead the European sales team, drive revenue for the region, and continue to assist with publisher and platform relationships across key territories. Korin will report to Jana Friedman, Double Fusion's recently announced SVP of Global Advertising Sales. The announcement was made today by Jonathan Epstein, President and CEO of Double Fusion.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Trustworthy tech support at www.blinkx.com

blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced a partnership with Woopid (www.woopid.com), the Web's best resource for technology tutorial videos. More than 2,000 of Woopid's premium instructional video clips are now more easily accessible than ever before, courtesy of blinkx. Leveraging its unique AdHoc platform, blinkx will also place contextually relevant advertising against the footage, and share resulting advertising revenue with Woopid.

Scientific Hedging

A favourite theme in disaster movies is the political figure who tries to keep the local population from being alerted to some impending catastrophe.  Usually, the political figure tries to impede the publication of findings by one or more scientists.  In real life, it is more commonly the scientists themselves who create a barrier that stands between them and non-scientists. That barrier, the 'hedge' is a linguistic device.

It makes sense that ecological changes caused by humans affect natural biodiversity and, in some cases, can even cause permanent displacement of a species.

Unless science revives it.

Researchers from Eawag and from two German universities (Frankfurt and Konstanz), analyzed genetic material from Daphnia eggs up to 100 years old and say the eutrophication of Greifensee and Lake Constance in the 1970s and 1980s led to genetic changes in a species of water flea which was ultimately displaced. Despite the fact that water quality has since been significantly improved, this species has not been re-established.   Naturally, anyway.


Daphnia Galeata.  Photo: Eaweg University

Astronomers have obtained exceptional 3D views of distant galaxies, seen when the Universe was half its current age, by combining the the Hubble Space Telescope’s acute eye and the ESO’s Very Large Telescope to probe the motions of gas in tiny objects. By looking at this unique “history book” of our Universe, at an epoch when the Sun and the Earth did not yet exist, scientists hope to solve the puzzle of how galaxies formed in the remote past.

Herd mentality. Angry mob. Mass hysteria. As these phrases suggest, we are not always confident that a large group of people will come up with the smartest decisions.

But numerous studies have shown that a crowd of people usually gives more accurate responses to questions compared to an individual and averaging the responses provided from a group increases accuracy by canceling out a number of errors made across the board, like over- and under-estimating the answer.

MIAMI, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Ashwin Kamlani, CEO of AboutAnywhere.com, operator of the world's only free online distribution network for the hotel industry, has been selected to participate in PhoCusWright's prestigious Travel Innovation Summit in Orlando, FL on November 17, 2009. The Summit is the second of its kind by PhoCusWright, showcasing innovators from around the world whose businesses focus on travel planning, purchasing and trending.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090108/CLTH010LOGO )

A new study from North Carolina State University shows that painted road markings, such as the lines separating traffic lanes, are significantly better at reflecting headlights in the direction that the paint was applied. This finding will help determine how states comply with new federal safety regulations and save money on painting their roadways.

What's in a name? Perhaps more (or less) money.  Before employers have a chance to judge job applicants on their merits, they may have already judged them on the sound of their names, says  a study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Labor Economics.