PLANEGG-MARTINSRIED, Germany, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Martinsried-based drug discovery and development company 4SC AG (Frankfurt, Prime Standard: VSC) announced today that the current Supervisory Board members Dr. Robert B. O'Connell and Dr. Brian Morgan intend to resign effectively at the end of the company's annual general shareholders' meeting taking place in Munich on 5 June 2008. At the upcoming general meeting, the Supervisory Board will propose as successors the nomination of Dr. Thomas Strüngmann and Helmut Jeggle, both representatives of Santo Holding (Germany) GmbH, the largest single shareholder of 4SC AG.

DALLAS, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Parks Associates and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA(R)) today announced the speakers for the CONNECTIONS(TM) Europe Summit, taking place on May 19, 2008, in cooperation with TM Forum's Management World 2008 in Nice, France.

The CONNECTIONS(TM) Europe Summit in Nice will address the new challenges to service providers in attracting and retaining customers in today's hyper- competitive worldwide market. Research from Parks Associates indicates the number of households worldwide using telco/IPTV services grew from 4.7 million in 2006 to more than 14 million in 2007. Europe -- with more than eight million households -- experienced a 250% growth rate between 2006 and 2007.

WAALWIJK, The Netherlands, April 24 /PRNewswire/ --

2007 Annual Report

DOCDATA N.V. today publishes the 2007 Annual Report. The 2007 Financial Statements included in the 2007 Annual Report correspond with the figures for the 2007 financial year, which DOCDATA N.V. already announced on 14 February 2008.

General Meeting of Shareholders

Birds, unlike mammals, lack a tissue that is specialized to generate heat. A team of researchers at New York Medical College writes that the same lack of heat-generating tissue may have contributed to the extinction of ... dinosaurs.

Humans, like all mammals, have two kinds of adipose tissue, white fat and brown fat. White fat is used for storing energy-rich fuels, while brown fat generates heat. Hibernating bears have a lot of brown fat, as do human infants, who have much more than adults, relative to their body size. Infants’ brown fat protects them from hypothermia. Clinicians would like to find ways of making adult white fat behave more like brown fat so that we could burn, rather than store, energy.

While most mammals have a key gene called UCP1, which is responsible for the heat-generation function of brown fat, birds do not. The researchers found they could induce a specific type of stem cell in chicken embryos to produce differentiated cells that are structured and behave like brown fat. These chicken cells can even activate a UCP1 gene if presented with one from a mouse.

At the cores of many galaxies, supermassive black holes expel powerful jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. Just how they perform this feat has long been one of the mysteries of astrophysics. The leading theory says the particles are accelerated by tightly-twisted magnetic fields close to the black hole, but confirming that idea required an elusive close-up view of the jet's inner throat. Now, using the unrivaled resolution of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), astronomers have watched material winding a corkscrew outward path and behaving exactly as predicted by the theory.

BASINGSTOKE, England and CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announces the acquisition of arylsulfatase -A (ASA) an Enzyme Replacement Therapy (ERT) in Phase 1-2 clinical trials for Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) from the Danish company Zymenex A/S (Zymenex).

MLD is a serious, life-limiting disease in which patients experience progressive irreversible neurological damage. MLD is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme ASA which causes an excess concentration of sulphatide in cells and an ensuing breakdown of myelin. There are approximately 2,000 MLD patients in developed world markets(1).

EVRY, France, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Novagali Pharma, an emerging ophthalmic pharmaceutical company today announced that it has successfully injected the first patient in a Phase I clinical trial using CORTIJECT(R), an ophthalmic injectable emulsion based on EYEJECT(R) technology platform containing a corticosteroid prodrug for the treatment of Diabetic Macular Edema (DME). This trial, which will enroll a total of 15 patients, is designed to evaluate the safety and to observe the efficacy trend of CORTIJECT(R). The patients will be monitored for a period of twelve months following injection.

MAINZ, Germany and MUMBAI, India, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- SCHOTT AG and KAISHA Manufacturers Private Ltd., an Indian company, announce the formation of a joint venture, SCHOTT KAISHA Private Ltd. The new joint venture will manufacture primary pharmaceutical packaging made of glass for the Indian market. The joint enterprise will have operations in Mumbai and Daman.

"With this double-digit million euro investment, SCHOTT continues on its course to growth and quality leadership. Additionally, we are securing our access to a very promising market," says Professor Udo Ungeheuer, Chairman of the Board of Management of SCHOTT AG.

In 1600 eruption of Huaynaputina in Peru put a large amount of sulfur into the atmosphere. Sulfur reacts with water in the air to form droplets of sulfuric acid, which cool the planet by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface.

The droplets soon fall back to Earth, so the cooling effects lasted only a year or so, but the global impact on human society was much greater, according to a new study of contemporary records by geologists at UC Davis.
N
o one had looked at the agricultural and social impacts, said Ken Verosub, professor of geology at UC Davis. "We knew it was a big eruption, we knew it was a cold year, and that's all we knew."

It's been thought that very preterm babies were not developed enough to benefit from 'comfort strategies but research published today in BMC Pediatrics suggests that even babies born between 28 and 31 weeks could benefit from skin-to-skin cuddling with their mother before and during painful procedures, such as a heel lance.

Celeste Johnston of McGill University, Montreal, Canada and colleagues have already shown that skin-to-skin contact, known as kangaroo mother care (KMC) helps babies born at 32 to 36 weeks to recover from pain.