Researchers at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have performed the world’s first totally automated administration of an anesthetic.

Nicknamed “McSleepy,” the new system developed by the researchers administers drugs for general anesthesia and monitors their separate effects completely automatically, with no manual intervention.

The anesthetic technique was used on a patient who underwent a partial nephrectomy, a procedure that removes a kidney tumor while leaving the non-cancerous part of the kidney intact, over a period of 3 hours and 30 minutes. To manipulate the various components of general anesthesia, the automated system measures three separate parameters displayed on a new Integrated monitor of anesthesia (IMATM): depth of hypnosis via EEG analysis, pain via a new pain score, called AnalgoscoreTM, and muscle relaxation via phonomyographyTM, all developed by ITAG. The system then administers the appropriate drugs using conventional infusion pumps, controlled by a laptop computer on which “McSleepy” is installed.

Fewer caribou calves are being born and more of them are dying in West Greenland as a result of a warming climate, according to Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology. Post, who believes that caribou may serve as an indicator species for climate changes including global warming, based his conclusions on data showing that the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births.

Caribou -- which are closely related to wild reindeer -- are dependent on plants for all their energy and nutrients. Throughout the long Arctic winter, when there is no plant growth, they dig through snow to find lichens; however, in spring they rapidly switch to grazing on the new growth of willows, sedges, and flowering tundra herbs. As the birth season approaches, they are cued by increasing day length to migrate into areas where this newly-emergent food is plentiful.

Evolution is like the mafia, according to Omar Tonsi Eldakar and David Sloan Wilson at Binghamton University. Altruists(the exploited) ‘pay’ the the punishers of the selfish(exploiters) by allowing themselves to be exploited, while the selfish punishers return the favor with their second-order altruism. It's like a protection racket - without getting a canoli.

Rather than comparing it to La Familia, Eldakar and Wilson consider this behavioral strategy the "Selfish Punisher," which exploits altruists and punishes other selfish individuals, including other selfish punishers.

This strategy might seem hypocritical in moral terms but it is highly successful in Darwinian terms, according to their theoretical model published in PNAS and a computer simulation model published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Selfish punishers can invade the population when rare but then limit each other, preventing the altruists from being completely eliminated.

NASHUA, New Hampshire, May 1 /PRNewswire/ --

- For software developers who are building diagram-based user interfaces for Microsoft.NET

Northwoods Software today announced the availability of GoDiagram(TM) 3.0, a newly updated version of their popular diagramming software for developers.

PLEASANTON, California, May 1 /PRNewswire/ --

- IdeaSpigit(TM) Recognized for Breakthrough Innovations in Social Networking Analysis for Enterprise

In Phylogenetic Fallacies: Early Branching Must Mean Primitive I focused on the misconception that an "early branching" lineage was necessarily "primitive" (i.e., very similar to a distant ancestor). This time, I want to discuss something slightly more subtle, but nonetheless important, with regard to interpreting phylogenies. Specifically, I want to note a problem with the very concept of one lineage "branching off from" another lineage. There can be a tendency to consider evolutionary trees as reflecting a main line with a series of "side branches". This is especially true when the tree is "unbalanced" (lineages are depicted with uneven amounts of diversity) and "ladderized" (the more diverse branches are placed on the same side of each node). The following is a general unbalanced, right-ladderized tree.

There has been greatly increasing attention given to the potential of ‘biochar’, or charcoal made from biological tissues (e.g., wood) to serve as a long term sink of carbon in the soil. This is because charcoal is carbon-rich and breaks down extremely slowly, persisting in soil for thousands of years.

This has led to the suggestion being seriously considered by policy makers worldwide that biochar could be produced in large quantities and stored in soils. This would in turn increase ecosystem carbon sequestration, and thereby counteract human induced increases in carbon-based greenhouse gases and help combat global warming.

PARIS, May 1 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Analysis of ASCOT-BPLA Data Identifies Major Predictors of NOD Among Hypertensives

A new analysis of data from the landmark Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial - Blood Pressure Lowering Arm (ASCOT-BPLA) published today in Diabetes Care has identified the major predictors of new-onset diabetes (NOD) in patients with hypertension. In particular, the data show that hypertensive patients allocated to amlodipine and the ACE inhibitor perindopril (Coversyl(R), Servier) were 34% (HR 0.64 95% CI 0.59 to 0.74) less likely to develop NOD compared with those allocated to a beta-blocker/diuretic combination (atenolol plus or minus thiazide).(1)

KENT, Washington, May 1 /PRNewswire/ --

ARI Technologies, Inc., a leading waste management technology developer has signed an agreement granting exclusive licensing rights for its patented thermochemical conversion technology to Pectel Group; a leader in the asbestos removal industry in the UK and Ireland. This innovative technology was developed, patented and commercialized by ARI. It destroys asbestos fibers through a thermal and chemical process, producing an inert, non-toxic, recycled, construction aggregate. This ground-breaking technology is revolutionary in that it costs less than half that of other available processes that melt the waste.

LONDON, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Eisai Limited, the licence holder of Aricept(R) (donepezil hydrochloride) and Pfizer Limited, its co-promotion partner, welcomed today's landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal. The Court found that the process by which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) decided to restrict anti-dementia medicines for newly diagnosed patients with mild Alzheimer's disease was procedurally unfair.