Researchers at the University of Leeds say they have solved a medical condition that puzzled Hippocrates more than 2,000 years ago. The phenomenon of "finger clubbing", a deformity of the fingers and fingernails, has been known for thousands of years, and has long been recognized to be a sign of a wide range of serious diseases.

Lung cancer, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, various gastrointestinal diseases and many other conditions all result in finger clubbing. But exactly why swollen, reddened fingers should be an indicator of serious illness has remained a mystery – until now.

"It's one of the first things they teach you at medical school," explained Professor David Bonthron of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine. "You shake the patient by the hand, and take a good look at their fingers in the process."
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Nitrogen is the primary nutrient that dictates productivity (and thus carbon consumption) in boreal forests. In pristine boreal ecosystems, most new nitrogen enters the forest through cyanobacteria living on the shoots of feather mosses, which grows in dense cushions on the forest floor.

These bacteria convert nitrogen from the atmosphere to a form that can be used by other living organisms, a process referred to as "nitrogen-fixation." The researchers showed that this natural fertilization process appears to be partially controlled by trees and shrubs that sit above the feather mosses.

In the summer of 2006, the researchers placed small tubes, called resin lysimeters, in the moss layer to catch nitrogen deposited on the feather moss carpets from the above canopy and then monitored nitrogen fixation rates in the mosses. The studies revealed that when high levels of nitrogen were deposited on the moss cushion from above, a condition typical of young forests, nitrogen fixation was extremely low. In older, low-productivity forests, very little nitrogen was deposited on the moss cushion, resulting in extremely high nitrogen fixation rates.

Pavan Sukhdev of Deutsche Bank has laid out a case for what he called a "comprehensive and compelling economic case for the conservation of biodiversity" today.

Nature obviously provides human society with a vast diversity of benefits, like food, water, healthy soil and protection from floods but while we are totally dependent upon these "ecosystem services" they are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so they often are not detected by our current economic compass.

As a result, due to pressures from population growth, changing diets and urbanization, biodiversity is declining.

The report presented today shows that if we do not adopt the right policies, the current decline in biodiversity and the related loss of ecosystem services will continue and in some cases even accelerate. Some ecosystems are likely to be damaged beyond repair. With a "business as usual" scenario, by 2050 we will be faced with serious consequences:

AMSTERDAM, May 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (Euronext: AMT), a leader in the field of human gene therapy, today announced that positive interim data from its pivotal clinical trial with AMT's lead product Glybera(R) (AMT-011) were presented by the Principal Investigator, professor Daniel Gaudet, at the American Society of Gene Therapy Annual Meeting in Boston on May 29th. These data confirm the outcome of a previous study conducted in The Netherlands, demonstrating safety and efficacy of Glybera(R) for lipoprotein-lipase deficiency, a disease also known as Hyperlipoproteinemia (HPL) type I. Currently, there is no effective treatment or cure for this seriously debilitating and potentially lethal disease.

Study data

CANNES, France, May 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Portal from Long-Time Provider of Surveillance Data, Analytics, Software, and Content for the Global Securitisation Industry Supports ESF Initiatives to Promote Transparency

Global ABS 2008 -- Lewtan Technologies, Inc., provider of ABSNet, the industry's leading source for asset-backed securities surveillance data, analytics, software, and content for the global securitisation industry, today announced the availability of the Global ABS Portal, which provides free access to the most recent remittance reports and original prospectuses for public European securitisations.

TORONTO, May 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Developer Plans To Catapult its Growth & Penetration of the Wind and Solar Industry

Canada's leading renewable energy developer, SkyPower Corp, a Lehman Brothers Company, announced today that it is considering strategic alternatives to augment its growing capital base and accelerate development of its wind and solar pipelines. The Company's portfolio of wind and solar projects -- in various stages of development and construction -- represents in excess of 10,000 MW of potential renewable energy.

Don't put a down payment on that invisible plane just yet but a team of scientists from Boston College and Duke University developed a highly-engineered metamaterial capable of absorbing all of the light that strikes it – to a scientific standard of perfection.

The metamaterial uses tiny geometric surface features to successfully capture the electric and magnetic properties of a microwave to the point of total absorption.

The group used computer simulations based on prior research findings in the field to design resonators able to couple individually to electric and magnetic fields to successfully absorb all incident radiation, according to the findings in Physical Review Letters..

SANTA CLARA, California, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRVL), a leader in storage, communications, and consumer silicon solutions, today announced it has named Clyde R. Hosein Chief Financial Officer, effective June 23rd, 2008.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070411/SFW034LOGO)

EDMONTON, Canada, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

- TCH (Taxotere, Carboplatin, Herceptin) showed a significant improvement in Disease-Free Survival (DFS) and Overall Survival (OS), compared to AC-T (doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by docetaxel) and a 5-fold lower cardiotoxicity compared to AC-TH (AC-T + Herceptin) in women receiving adjuvant therapy for HER2-positive ESBC

LONDON, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

Global Crossing (UK) Finance plc ("GCUK Finance"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Crossing Limited (Nasdaq: GLBC), announced today, May 29, 2008, the expiration of its excess cash offer with respect to its senior secured notes. The offer expired today at 5:00 p.m. BST.