MUMBAI, India, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Interactive Systems showcased how its Electronic Performance Support Systems are helping organizations worldwide ramp up their productivity at Dynamic Contact Centre Solutions 2008, an International Quality and Productivity Centre (IQPC) event in Sydney, Australia (31st March to 2nd April).

On-the-job support is critical for any organization seeking to boost its employees' productivity. Tata Interactive Systems develops tools to allow staff to do their jobs right the first time, maximizing efficiency and minimizing costly errors.

HAGEN, Germany, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The Germany-based Peperoni Software GmbH is one of the most successful companies in the mobile social networking business. This was announced recently in a study published by Opera, a (provider of) mobile web browser software. The details on statistics/placements can be viewed at http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/.

The ad-funded platform peperonity.com contains almost 4 million user created pages, which makes them the leader in mobile social networking. Markets like India and South Africa show the obvious importance of community services for the target audience in countries with low data rates. In both countries, peperonity.com scored the fourth place of all visited WAP sites.

Once considered a barren plain dotted with hydrothermal vents, the seafloor's rocky regions appear to be teeming with microbial life, say scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Mass., University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, and other institutions.

On the deep ocean floor, microbial life is feeding on fresh volcanic rock and flourishing with greater abundance than even the most optimistic scientists thought possible. Scientists have found bacteria growing on oceanic crust in concentrations that are thousands- to ten-thousand times (three to four orders of magnitude) greater than what is found in the overlying waters.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the University of Southern California (USC), and four other institutions collected and examined rock and water samples from the East Pacific Rise, the Nankai Trough, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Sargasso Sea, and the seafloor near Hawaii. They used various molecular and genetic analysis tools (such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction and clone libraries) to quantify the abundance, richness, and diversity of communities of bacteria living on young ocean crust.

Food may not be the major cause of hyperactivity in children. Genetics, brain function and parental actions such as smoking may be just as important.

ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) has a strong genetic link, with half the children born of parents with diagnosed ADHD likely to develop the disorder themselves. Chemical imbalances in the brain are also involved and studies have found that children with the condition have on average 4% smaller brains. Genes may interact with environmental toxins such as alcohol in the womb, lead, and parental smoking to cause later problems with attention span.

A review of scientific evidence found only a minority of children were actually affected by what they eat. A combination of food, genetics and environmental toxins are more likely to be involved, with no single factor to blame.

By studying heat-loving microbes, two research teams have gained new insight into how seemingly small differences in a single protein involved in DNA transcription and repair can lead to strikingly different genetic disorders in humans.

The two studies in the May 30th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, uncover the crystal structure and biochemical activity of an enzyme known as XPD helicase taken from Sulfolobus archaea, microbes distinct from bacteria that share many fundamental genes with humans.

For reasons that had remained rather mysterious until now, point mutations in human XPD—sometimes at neighboring sites—can spell the difference between cancer-prone xeroderma pigmentosa, the aging disorder known as Cockayne syndrome and another aging disorder called trichothiodystrophy.

The traditional Mediterranean diet provides substantial protection against type 2 diabetes, according to a study published on bmj.com today.

The Mediterreanean diet is rich in olive oil, grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and fish, but low in meat, dairy products and alcohol.

Current evidence suggests that such a diet has a protective role in cardiovascular disease, but little is known about its role on the risk of developing diabetes in healthy populations.

The SUN prospective cohort study involved over 13 000 graduates from the University of Navarra in Spain with no history of diabetes, who were recruited between December 1999 and November 2007, and whose dietary habits and health were subsequently tracked.

LONDON, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

- Odds of youth smoking uptake greatly reduced if parents quit

If both parents of a child never smoked, research shows that a child's odds of daily smoking are reduced by more than 70 percent(1) compared to when both parents continue to smoke. And if both parents were smokers but quit, those same odds are reduced by nearly 40 percent.(1) Additional research shows that mothers who quit are less likely to have children who start smoking.(2)

LONDON, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

- Year-Long Campaign Titled 'Optimum Health and Nutrition' to Focus on the Link Between Nutrition and Digestive Health

- Poor Digestive Health Affects Millions Worldwide and Seriously Impacts Quality of Life, yet few Seek Medical Advice

- WGO and Danone Committed to Working Together Over Next Three Years to Help Raise Awareness and Improve Digestive Health

LONDON, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

More northern women feel bloating and gurgling than their southern counterparts with up to 70% of them likely to experience it at any one time, according to a TNS survey commissioned by Danone(1).

Women from the West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside fared the worst (71%), with Greater London and the South West experiencing the least amount of bloated feelings. And 61% of British women experience feeling bloated, with 85% believing they have a healthy digestive system.

Two thirds of women haven't consulted a doctor or nurse about these feelings - younger women especially, aged 16 - 34, generally do not do anything about these feelings of digestive discomfort.

BRUSSELS, Belgium and AMMAN, Jordan, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 250 million people worldwide live with diabetes, many in the Middle East. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) BRIDGES translational research grant program is implementing and evaluating community programs to reverse the diabetes epidemic by supporting a diabetes awareness and prevention project in Jordan.