Researchers at Deventer Hospital recently tried Luminol, a chemical used by crime scene investigators, to detect traces of blood in their haemodialysis unit. Luminol reacts with microscopic amounts of blood to produce bright blue luminescence, which allows investigators to track invisible blood splashes in the environment.

The researchers tested their apparently clean unit with Luminol and found traces of blood on many surfaces, including cupboard handles, telephones, computer keyboards, side tables and the floor, even though some of these surfaces had been cleaned. They expect that these results can be reproduced in other hospitals that plan to use Luminol in the future as described in their paper.

OTTAWA, Canada, April 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- International Climate Science Coalition Releases Signatories to the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change

The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) today released the names of over 500 endorsers of the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change that calls on world leaders to "reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as popular, but misguided works such as 'An Inconvenient Truth'." All taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) should "be abandoned forthwith", declaration signatories conclude.

Score one for the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate, as North Carolina State University geneticists have shown that environmental factors such as lifestyle and geography play a large role in whether certain genes are turned on or off.

By studying gene expression of white blood cells in 46 Moroccan Amazighs, or Berbers – including desert nomads, mountain agrarians and coastal urban dwellers – the NC State researchers and collaborators in Morocco and the United States showed that up to one-third of genes are differentially expressed due to where and how the Moroccan Amazighs live.

LONDON, April 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Prestigious UK Accolade Highlights the Outstanding Innovation at the Heart of Thomson Pharma(R)

Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, announced that on the occasion of the Queen's birthday it has been awarded a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category. The award acknowledges the outstanding innovation involved in designing Thomson Pharma, the essential information solution for the pharmaceutical industry.

PHILADELPHIA, April 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Content Provides Marketplace Context to Support Business Decisions

Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the addition of authoritative business and news content to Thomson Innovation(SM) (www.thomsoninnovation.com), the new standard in intellectual property research and analysis. Combining business and news information with comprehensive patent data and scientific literature, Thomson Innovation provides the most complete resource for prior art and competitive intelligence research.

LAS VEGAS, April 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Registration, full schedule now available at www.WaterSmartInnovations.com

"Early bird" full conference registration is underway until July 11 for the inaugural WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Exposition, Oct. 8-10, 2008, in Las Vegas.

A discounted rate of US$330 is available through the conference's Web site, http://www.WaterSmartInnovations.com. After July 11, full conference registration will increase to US$390. WaterSmart Innovations will be held at the South Point Hotel & Casino, at the south end of the famed Las Vegas Strip.

Magnetic confinement fusion could be a safe, environmentally friendly way to provide a substantial part of the world’s energy needs in the 21st century but before that can happen science needs to understand the complex behavior of hot collisionless plasmas (ion gases) in strong magnetic fields.

Such plasmas are subject to temperature and density gradient driven microturbulence which leads to particle and heat losses and tends to keep the plasma from reaching a "burning" state.

Simulations are necessary if we are to understand and control plasma microturbulence but, because fusion plasmas are virtually collisionless, a three-dimensional (i.e., in space) fluid description must, in principle, be abandoned, in favor of a six-dimensional (i.e., in phase space) kinetic one.

BURBANK, California, April 21 /PRNewswire/ --

The Walt Disney Studios will celebrate Earth Day 2009 (April 22nd) with the debut of "Earth," the first feature-length nature documentary from its new production banner, Disneynature. This amazing new film is from award-winning British producer/director Alastair Fothergill, whose credits include the Emmy and Peabody award-winning "Planet Earth" series (BBC and The Discovery Channel) and "The Blue Planet."

LONDON, April 21 /PRNewswire/ --

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) will highlight its broadband wireless capability at the British Association of Public Safety Communications Officers (BAPCO) annual conference and exhibition to be held at 23-24 April 2008 at the Business Design Centre, London.

Northrop Grumman together with NextWave Wireless will be located at stand B37.

John Erdman, a University of Illinois professor of food science and human nutrition who also chairs the Mars, Inc. Scientific Advisory Council and has received millions in funding from Mars, Inc., recognizes that taking money from a candy bar company (Mars Inc.) to do a study of their (Mars Inc.) candy bar proving it is healthy will have skeptics.

Not here. Hey, if Philip-Morris wants to highlight a study saying cigarettes cure cancer or Exxon-Mobil needs to promote a study saying automobile carbon monoxide improves asthma, we won't ridicule them just because of the funding. We'll ridicule them because of the methodology.

“Eating two CocoaVia dark chocolate bars a day not only lowered cholesterol, it had the unexpected effect of also lowering systolic blood pressure,” said Erdman on the results of a peer-reviewed study in The Journal of Nutrition.

Except the participants were also put on the American Heart Association’s “Eating Plan for Healthy Americans” (the Step 1 diet) two weeks before the study started.