KYOTO, Japan, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

OMRON HEALTHCARE Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Omron Corporation and a leading manufacturer of medical, home healthcare, and wellness products, has developed the HEM-SOLAR Series, solar-powered digital blood pressure monitors, for release worldwide in spring 2009.

"HEM-SOLAR monitors will allow health practitioners and individuals to take blood pressure readings wherever sunlight is available," says Keiichiro Akahoshi, representative director and CEO of Omron Healthcare Co., Ltd. "The development of this series further illustrates Omron's commitment to environmental stewardship."

Scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recently conducted a study showing that long-term exposure to a component of artificial butter flavoring called diacetyl can be harmful to the nose and airways of mice. The study was conducted because diacetyl has been implicated in causing obliterative bronchiolitis (OB), a rare but debilitating lung disease, in humans.

OB has been detected in workers who inhaled significant concentrations of the flavoring in microwave popcorn packaging plants. When laboratory mice inhaled diacetyl vapors for three months, they developed lymphocytic bronchiolitis - a potential precursor of OB. None of the mice, however, were diagnosed with OB.

5 million trillion trillion.

That's a lot of zeroes but it's how many single-celled microbes there are on Earth. And they affect almost every ecological process.

Though microbes are everywhere and essentially rule the planet, scientists have never been able to conduct comprehensive studies of microbes and their interactions with one another in their natural habitats. A new study provides the first inventories of microbial capabilities in nine very different types of ecosystems, ranging from coral reefs to deep mines.

In a find that sheds light on how Earth-like planets may form, astronomers this week reported finding the first evidence of small, sandy particles orbiting a newborn solar system at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the sun.

"Precisely how and when planets form is an open question," said study co-author Christopher Johns-Krull, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University. "We believe the disk-shaped clouds of dust around newly formed stars condense, forming microscopic grains of sand that eventually go on to become pebbles, boulders and whole planets."

In previous studies, astronomers have used infrared heat signals to identify microscopic dust particles around distant stars, but the method isn't precise enough to tell astronomers just how big they become, and whether the particles orbit near the star, like the Earth does the sun, or much further away at a distance more akin to Jupiter or Saturn.

Individual genes do not cause depression, but they are thought to increase the probability of an individual having a depression in the face of other accumulating risk factors, such as other genes and environmental stressors.

One gene that has been shown to increase the risk for depression in the context of multiple stressful life events is the gene for the serotonin transporter protein. This gene is responsible for making the protein that is targeted by all current drug treatments for depression.

Researchers have identified 25 genes regulating lifespan in two organisms separated by about 1.5 billion years in evolutionary change. At least 15 of those genes have very similar versions in humans, suggesting that scientists may be able to target those genes to help slow down the aging process and treat age-related conditions.

The two organisms used in this study, the single-celled budding yeast and the roundworm C. elegans, are commonly used models for aging research. Finding genes that are conserved between the two organisms is significant, researchers say, because the two species are so far apart on the evolutionary scale -- even farther apart than the tiny worms and humans. That, combined with the presence of similar human genes, is an indication that these genes could regulate human longevity as well.

PARIS, March 12 /PRNewswire/ --

- Further Profit Growth

- Sales up 16% - Profit Before R&D up 19%

- Net Profit (Group Share) up 12%

- Acceleration of R&D Expenditure

The Board of Directors, meeting on 11 March 2008 under the chairmanship of Albert Saporta, approved the 2007 consolidated financial statements:

HOUSTON, March 12 /PRNewswire/ --

Water Standard Company (WSC) today announced that it has received commitments of up to US$250 million in equity to develop its Seawater Desalination Vessels, whose environmentally focused technology can help ease the world's growing water crisis and bring needed water to disaster-stricken areas.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080312/LAW064LOGO )

This pledge of equity, believed to be the largest initial funding of a startup in the water industry, is unprecedented in the desalination sector. It gives WSC the capability to bring proven desalination processes -- which can produce up to 300,000 cubic meters of water per day on the ocean-going Seawater Desalination Vessels -- to a worldwide market.

Grammar is a complex human ability yet by the age of three most children can make grammatically correct sentences. Kids with a specific language impairment(SLI), however, continue to make grammatical errors, sometimes even into adulthood. As teenagers they might make errors that other children rarely make after age five; for example, when asking a question they might say “Who Joe see someone?” rather than “Who did Joe see?”.

SLI affects about seven percent of children and is a major cause of children not reaching their educational potential but it's never been clear if these children struggle to process language or just grammar.

Researchers at University College London may have some answers. They have discovered that a system in the brain for processing grammar is impaired in some children with SLI but that these children compensate with a different brain area.

CORVALLIS, Oregon, March 12 /PRNewswire/ --

MyStrands, a leading developer of social recommendation technologies, today announced the Strands US$100,000 Call for Recommender Startups. The Call seeks to identify the best early-stage start-up or project in the area of recommendation technologies. The Winner will be offered an investment of US$100,000 from Strands, Inc., the parent company of MyStrands.

"More than anything, the future of the recommender industry is a business that will continue to grow," said Francisco J. Martin, chief executive officer of MyStrands. "We are looking to assist other entrepreneurs in the recommendation field, as we wish we had been assisted in our earlier years."