In Greek “Onycho” means fingernail or toenail and “phagia” is to eat or consume. Hence, “Onychphagia,” the clinical name for nail biting as a habit, which affects nearly 45 percent of adolescents. It may seem minor in comparison to addictions such as the excessive consumption of drugs or alcohol, but the biting of the nails can trigger oral herpes, dental problems like gingivitis, viral infections and studies have even shown loss of IQ due to the consumption of lead. A scene in the 1998 movie “Great Expectations” shows an interaction between a convict played by Robert De Niro and a young boy who gets temporarily captured into aiding the escaped man. As the pressures of the moment set in for the boy, he nervously begins biting his nails. When the criminal notices what his acquaintance is doing he takes it upon himself to teach the kid a lesson. “You bite your nails? It’s a bad habit. People always tell you that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Bullshit it’s your hands, that’s the sign of a gentleman.”

MAIDENHEAD, England, July 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- PREVENAR Vaccine to Help Protect Children Against the Leading Vaccine-Preventable Cause of Death in Young Children

Wyeth applauds the countries of Cyprus, Hungary, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Republic of Ireland, Slovak Republic and Sweden for announcing their decisions to routinely immunize infants and young children against pneumococcal disease by adding PREVENAR(TM) PCV7 (Pneumococcal Saccharide Conjugated Vaccine, Adsorbed) to their national immunization programs(1). This announcement makes it 24 countries across the world that have now included Prevenar in their immunizations schedules(1).

EGHAM, England, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals (P&GP) welcome the new Final Appraisal Determination (FAD) Guidance for the primary and secondary prevention of osteoporosis from NICE.

The revised NICE FAD recommends risedronate - alongside etidronate - as the first alternative treatment option to generic alendronate for postmenopausal women who are unable to comply with the special administration instructions, have a contraindication to, or are intolerant of alendronate (and also meet certain criteria such as BMD T- scores (a measurement of Bone Mineral Density), age and independent risk factors for fracture)(i,ii).

PARIS, July 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- Students address environmental sustainability with innovative technology; torch passes to Egypt for Imagine Cup 2009.

There are a few areas where computers cannot surpass humans and a new study says music is still among them.

Neuroscientists in a new study looked at the brain's response to piano sonatas played either by a computer or a musician and found that, while the computerized version elicited an emotional response – particularly to unexpected chord changes - it was not as strong as listening to the same piece played by a professional pianist.

Senior research fellow in psychology Dr Stefan Koelsch, who carried out the study with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, played excerpts from classical piano sonatas to twenty non-musicians and recorded electric brain responses and skin conductance responses (which vary with sweat production as a result of an emotional response).

LONDON, July 8 /PRNewswire/ --

Planalytics Inc., the global leader in Business Weather Intelligence(R), released its June WeatherCall(SM) report highlighting shifting weather patterns throughout the month that resulted in equally inconsistent consumer demands. The conditions varied, with rain constantly threatening to interrupt the short periods of sunshine experienced throughout the country. Businesses were faced with disappointing sales on seasonal products, save for lawn and garden-based industries, who managed to profit from prime conditions for plant and lawn growth.

LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- In this special video edition of our podcast "Chemistry of Innovations" you will learn how energy efficiency helps to protect the climate.

Video at http://www.basf.com/climate

Energy efficiency is the most important single future source of energy to supply the growing energy demand and to protect the climate. Being energy efficient in industry, mobility and housing will offer the biggest potential to use energy more efficiently. Just through energy efficiency and with already existing technologies it's possible to curb our predicted increasing global energy demand and thus the CO2-emissions by the year 2030 significantly.

NEW YORK, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Gameloft(R), a leading publisher and developer of video games for mobile phones and consoles, announced today the launch of NFL 2009 as part of its mobile licensing agreement with the National Football League (NFL). The deal allows Gameloft to create an authentic NFL experience for fans by featuring all 32 NFL teams, NFL players, NFL stadiums and detailed stats.

"We are proud that the NFL recognized Gameloft's signature titles and granted us the license to develop NFL 2009," said Gonzague de Vallois, senior vice president of Publishing, Gameloft. "NFL 2009 is packed full of team-specific strategies and spectacular offensive moves that are guaranteed to please football enthusiasts and provide them with the excitement of a live game,"

Girls moving through adolescence may experience unhealthy levels of weight gain and a new study in The Journal of Pediatrics analyzes the effect of Internet usage, sleep, and alcohol and coffee consumption.

Dr. Catherine Berkey and colleagues from Harvard Medical School, Brigham & Women's Hospital, and Washington University led the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS), which surveyed more than 5000 girls between the ages of 14 and 21 years from all 50 states. They asked the girls to reflect on their weekly habits over the past year and report the following: 1) hours of sleep per night; 2) time spent on the Internet (excluding time for work or school); 3) number of alcoholic beverages consumed; and 4) number of coffee beverages consumed. The girls also reported their height and weight at the beginning and end of the one-year study.

AUSTIN, Texas, July 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- Professional version includes profiler to highlight performance issues

REAL Software, maker of REALbasic, a cross-platform development environment for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux developers, will ship REALbasic 2008 Release 3 beginning today. This release adds the new Attributes language feature, an update to the project analyzer to include warnings of deprecated functionality and other code issues, and an integrated profiler that allows programmers to track down performance issues within their applications quickly without any additional coding.