A new proposed spacecraft named MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) is expected to be launched in 2013, a $485 million mission to collect atmospheric data on Mars. The purpose of the NASA’s Mars Exploration Program is to gain further knowledge on the history of the planet’s climate and atmosphere, as well as the planet’s availability of water and its future habitability.

For a long time scientists have been puzzled by the fact that the immune system in the gut is capable of fighting toxic bacterial infection while staying, at the same time, tolerant to its resident “friendly” bacteria. But an article now published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe(1) is starting to open the door to this mystery by revealing how a recently discovered gene - pims – is activated by the gut immune response against friendly bacteria to rapidly suppress it, effectively creating tolerance to the gut microbiota. In the same way pims is also shown to control the magnitude of immune responses against toxic bacteria by suppressing immuno-reactivity when a certain activation threshold is achieved, assuring, in this way, that the response stays restricted to the infection site and is proportional to the extent of the infection. These results suggest that the balance tolerance/immuno-reaction in the gut is achieved through self-regulatory cycles where suppression by negative regulators, such as pims, is triggered as soon as a specific threshold of immuno activation is reached.

High blood pressure (hypertension) is one of the most prevalent diseases in the United States. The American Heart Association estimates that high blood pressure affects approximately one in three adults in the US. Genetics and a diet of foods high in fat and saturated with salt underlie the resulting 73 million people suffering from hypertension in the US. As a result, they have a greatly increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, atherosclerosis, eye damage and stroke. These complications can result in permanent organ damage and death.

Blood pressure is intricately linked to salt and water balance in the body, which is controlled by the kidneys. More salt equals more water and fluid in the kidneys and therefore in the arteries. This causes an increase in overall blood pressure due to increased fluid mass. Furthermore, certain salt ions are linked in cells. Sodium and potassium are commonly linked ions which travel in and out of cells conducted by specific ion channels. The ion charges inside or outside of the cell create a electrical charge which then control physiological outcomes including neuronal impulses and hormonal and muscle controlling cells.

Pirates, like gangsters, highwayman, and other colorful outlaws, have always carried a certain romantic appeal and, thanks to "Pirates of the Caribbean", they are the most appealing of the outlaws at this moment.

In a swashbuckling article for the Journal of Political Economy, Peter Leeson explored the fascinating “golden age” of piracy during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and finds that these criminal organizations were able to establish a remarkably stable form of self-government.

LONDON, September 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Cambian Healthcare and re:source won the 2008 Independent Healthcare Award for their ground-breaking partnership to improve the lives of patients with mental illness. The award was judged by the Healthcare Commission.

The award recognises a new innovative programme that enables long-stay hospital patients to return to their communities.

In 2007, 47 patients from the East Midlands were transferred to Cambian's Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Programme. The programme uses high staff ratios and intensive clinical inputs to work closely with these patients to rebuild their daily living skills and confidence.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland, September 19 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 200 participants from 72 companies assembled at the exclusive annual international platform for sustainable energy solutions at Hilton Nordica Reykjavík September 18 and 19.

"In the next five years or so we have to lay the fundamental groundwork of a comprehensive transformation of our traffic system, our transport, how we use the roads, how we move from one place to another, whether it is a household or a city or a country." said Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, in his opening address at Driving Sustainability at Hilton Reykjavik Thursday.

LONDON, September 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Integer, a leading business consultancy in the area of global emissions regulations, today announced its latest speaker lineup for the Diesel Exhaust Fluid Forum (DEFF '08) to be held in San Diego, California, on November 11-12. The aim of this independent forum is to give exclusive insight into the commercial opportunities and concerns created by stricter heavy duty diesel vehicle emissions regulations from January 2010.

Precise measurements by the ESO instrument HARPS now show that the rotation of the Milky Way is simpler than previously thought - the much debated, apparent 'fall' of neighborhood Cepheid stars towards our Sun stems from an intrinsic property of the Cepheids themselves, say a group of astrophysicists led by Nicolas Nardetto in a Astronomy & Astrophysics article.

Since Henrietta Leavitt's discovery of their unique properties in 1912, the class of bright, pulsating stars known as Cepheids has been used as a distance indicator. Combined with velocity measurements, the properties of Cepheids are also an extremely valuable tool in investigations of how our galaxy, the Milky Way, rotates.

"The motion of Milky Way Cepheids is confusing and has led to disagreement among researchers," says Nardetto. "If the rotation of the Galaxy is taken into account, the Cepheids appear to 'fall' towards the Sun with a mean velocity of about 2 km/s."