Show Me The Science Month Day 25 Installment 25



In nature, there is a sucker born every day. We humans may think that we're clever, but evolution has produced con games that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. One common natural swindle is mimicry, when one species tries to pass itself off as another. Orchids and cuckoos are classic examples of nature's swindlers, but mimicry isn't limited to plants and animals. A recent study has looked at how a fungus outsmarts a termite by dressing up as a termite egg.

The increasing frequency of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is alarming.  Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University believe they may have found a solution to this seemingly losing battle.  Professor Vern L. Schramm and team have developed antibiotic compounds that do not lead to microbial resistance over time.

A preliminary study on the application of thermo-microbiology and its relation to time of death has been released by Professor Isabel Corcobado and colleagues at the University of Granada.  The ultimate goal of this project is to use a microbiological indicator along with existing forensic techniques in order to determine time of death in forensics cases more accurately.

PITTSBURGH, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

The leader in the Microsoft Visual Studio component industry, ComponentOne, has been named by TechWeb as the winner of the 19th annual Jolt Product Excellence Award in the Libraries, Frameworks and Components category. For the past 18 years, the Jolt Product Excellence Awards have been presented annually to products and books that have jolted the industry with their significance and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080410/NEW078LOGO )

LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite the union which represents hundreds of Forest Commission workers has today welcomed the Scottish Government's announcement to abandon proposals to lease up to 25% of Scottish woodlands to private companies.

Unite, the UK's largest trade union, has also reiterated its call for the Scottish Government to also abandon its proposals to scarp the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (SAWB) which protects the terms and conditions and sets the wage levels for 25,000 workers in Scotland's agricultural sector.

The campaign to preserve the SAWB has further intensified following the UK Government's decision to consolidate its support for the retention and continued development of the Agricultural Wages Board in England and Wales.

NAPA, California, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Dr. Vinocur Reports on University of California Rosacea-Specific Study -

On March 9, 2009, Dr. Leigh Vinocur, medical expert from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was featured on WBAL-AM 1090 in a segment on rosacea, a condition afflicting over 14 million Americans. Dr. Vinocur addressed current therapies while reporting on a new study conducted at the Department of Dermatology, University of California, Irvine, in which rosacea patients were treated with a new cosmeceutical, Pyratine XR(TM) (0.125% furfuryl tetrahydropyranyl adenine).

LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The government's promise to 'substantially increase' health visitor numbers in the wake of the Laming review into child protection in England has been welcomed by Unite, the largest union in the country.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has announced a Programme of Action on Health Visiting which will be led by the Department of Health jointly with Unite/Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association (CPHVA). This is designed to reverse the current decline in the profession.

LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) announced its Europe-based air traffic management system subsidiary, Northrop Grumman Park Air Systems, has been awarded a contract by NATS Services Ltd. to supply, deliver and install its NOVA 9000 Radar Processing and Flight Planning System, with fully integrated electronic flight strips, to the new air traffic control (ATC) tower at Jersey International Airport.

BERLIN, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Frank Sliwka to Lead the New Berlin-based Team in the Production of both GDC Europe and the eSports Conference

If the Higgs boson, whatever that will turn out to be, is hiding, wherever it may be found continues to shrink.

The latest analysis of data from the CDF and DZero collider experiments at Fermilab has now excluded a significant fraction of the allowed Higgs mass range established by earlier measurements. Those experiments predict that the Higgs particle should have a mass between 114 and 185 GeV/c2. Now the CDF and DZero results carve out a section in the middle of this range and establish that it cannot have a mass in between 160 and 170 GeV/c2.