N.B. gets 2 health boards, better service pledged

New Brunswick's eight health boards officially merged Monday in a union authorities say will improve services for everyone.

The eight regional health authorities are nowadays consolidated into two entities � one based in Miramichi, and the other in Bathurst.

The Miramichi dominance will be in point of administering health concern for most of the province leave off in francophone areas, which will fall under Bathurst's jurisdiction.

The sue has sleek operations and will keep service duplication, said Health Minister Mike Murphy.

It volition also institute more transparence to the system, he said.

"You should know everything that I know that's going on in New Brunswick," he said last week. "There should [not] be any secrets with regard to the difficulties we experience, the opportunities that we have."

New Brunswick spends $2.2 one thousand million a year on health care, well-nigh 38 per cent of the bucolic budget.

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Friendly Fires bring the carnival to Reading Festival

Friendly Fires started a confetti-covered carnival in the Festival Republic tent at the Reading Festival today (August 22).


Playing to a packed-out crowd together, the ring were united by iI exotic dancers clad in sparkly bikinis and enormous feather capes following their last song, 'Jump In The Pool', creating a euphoric party feel.


The dancers were accompanied by hexad white-clad percussionists, who slammed their instruments manically to summon up a Brazilian-style party vibe at the end of the set.


Representatives for the band had handed out confetti tubes before the show to crowd members. Fans released the confetti throughout the show, adding to the high-octane atmosphere.


Aside from the carnival-style ending the band played brilliantly-received songs including 'Paris', during which frontman Ed Macfarlane leaped into the crowd to commix with fans as he sang.

Friendly Fires played:


'Photobooth'

'Your Love'

'Skeleton Boy'

'White Diamond'

'On Board'

'Paris'

'Jump In The Pool'

NME.COM is bringing you hot coverage square from both sites of the Reading And Leeds Festivals 2008. For the latest news, blogs, pictures and tV interviews head to the Reading And Leeds Festivals index now.


Plus make sure you contract next week's issue of NME - on newsstands nationwide from Wednesday August 27 - for the ultimate Reading And Leeds Festivals review.


For more Reading And Leeds Festivals coverage including live footage and more, inspect fellow official media partner bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds.



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Isis Initiates Clinical Trial Of CRP Drug

�Isis
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ISIS) proclaimed it has initiated a
Phase 1 study of ISIS 353512, an antisense drug that inhibits the
production of C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP levels ar frequently raised
in patients with a variety of diseases including cardiovascular disease,
Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis and end-stage renal disease. The
Phase 1 study of ISIS 353512 is a blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled,
dose-escalation study designed to assess the safety and pharmacokinetic
profile of ISIS 353512 as well as to assess the initial effects of the drug
on baseline CRP levels in goodish volunteers. In addition, Isis is
design a unspecific Phase 2 program to investigate multiple indications for
ISIS 353512.



"We conceive that CRP plays an important causal role not only in
cardiovascular disease but likewise in renal and inflammatory diseases. Based
on our preclinical data, and the safety and pharmacological information we will
obtain from this study, we plan to create a Phase 2 development plan that
evaluates various of the most scientifically and commercially attractive
indications for ISIS 353512," aforesaid Stanley Crooke, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Isis. "CRP is an excellent exercise of the power of our
applied science which enables us to efficiently develop drugs to any fair game and
to select targets that provide the most significant therapeutical benefit in
disease areas where new treatment options are desperately needed."

ISIS 353512 Targets CRP



ISIS 353512 is an antisense do drugs that targets CRP. For many eld, CRP
has been used as a clinical biomarker of diseases with an inflammatory
component, such as cardiovascular disease, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid
arthritis and end-stage renal disease. Elevated levels of CRP have been
linked to coronary artery disease and a growing body of evidence from
clinical trials implicates CRP in cardiovascular disease progression.
Although CRP's active involvement in these diseases stiff to be
determined, several lines of evidence support a causal role of CRP in
disease, suggesting that it may be therapeutically beneficial to decrement
CRP levels in patients who are at risk of exposure for coronary events. In addition,
elevated CRP levels have been associated with a worsening of boilers suit
outcome in conditions such as end-stage renal disease, suggesting that
lowering CRP in these patients would be beneficial. In presymptomatic studies,
ISIS 353512 produced dramatic crushing of liver and blood serum CRP levels.

ABOUT ISIS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.



Isis is exploiting its expertise in RNA to happen upon and acquire novel
drugs for its product pipeline and for its partners. The Company has
successfully commercialized the world's first antisense drug and has 18
drugs in development. Isis' drug development programs are focused on
treating cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Isis' partners are
developing antisense drugs invented by Isis to treat a wide mixed bag of
diseases. Ibis Biosciences, Inc., Isis' majority-owned foot soldier, is
development and commercializing the Ibis T5000(TM) Biosensor System, a
revolutionary system to identify infectious organisms. Isis is a joint
owner of Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture focused on the
find, development and commercialization of microRNA therapeutics. As
an innovator in RNA-based do drugs discovery and development, Isis is the owner
or exclusive licensee of all over 1,five hundred issued patents worldwide. Additional
information around Isis is available at http://www.isispharm.com.



This press out release includes forward-looking statements regarding Isis'
discovery and development of drugs for cardiovascular diseases, and the
potential of the antisense drug ISIS 353512 to treat cardiovascular, renal
and inflammatory diseases. Any affirmation describing Isis' goals,
expectations, financial or other projections, intentions or beliefs is a
forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk affirmation,
including those statements that are described as Isis' goals. Such
statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, particularly
those inherent in the march of discovering, developing and
commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human
therapeutics, and in the enterprise of building a business sector around such
products. Isis' forward-looking statements also imply assumptions that,
if they never materialize or prove correct, could cause its results to
differ materially from those expressed or implied by such fore looking
statements. Although Isis' forward-looking statements reflect the good
faith judgment of its management, these statements are based only on facts
and factors presently known by Isis. As a resultant role, you are cautioned not to
trust on these forward-looking statements. These and other risks concerning
Isis' programs are described in additional detail in Isis' annual story on
Form 10-K for the class ended December 31, 2007, and its quarterly account on
Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, which ar on file with the
SEC. Copies of these and early documents are available from the Company.



In this press release, unless the context requires otherwise, "Isis,"
"Company," "we," "our," and "us" refers to Isis Pharmaceuticals and its
subsidiaries.

Isis Pharmaceuticals is a registered trademark of Isis Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. Ibis Biosciences and Ibis T5000 are trademarks of Ibis Biosciences,
Inc. Regulus Therapeutics is a trademark of Regulus Therapeutics LLC.


Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
http://www.isispharm.com



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Recovery From Bed Rest During Pregnancy

�After weeks of bed rest during pregnancy, new mothers demand to reconstruct muscles and strengthen their stamina. Now a group of women will screen new interventions in aiding that convalescence during a pilot sketch at Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.





"Putting citizenry in layer is non a benign kind of thing," says Judith Maloni, a prof of nursing at the Bolton School. She has been perusal the personal effects of bed rest for nearly two decades and aerospace inquiry studies conducted by NASA have shown that bed rest changes every major organ system in the body and its function.





During her study, "Rebound: A Self-Management Intervention for Recovery from Ante-partum Bed Rest," Maloni testament test a set of exercises and educational programs that help women memorize to wangle their recovery after both bed lie and birth.





The study is supported by the Bolton School's Center for Excellence for Self-Management Advancement through Research and Translation (SMART). It is among foursome projects the center is piloting to learn more than about teaching individuals how to do their possess health care.





Nearly 1 1000000 pregnant women annually are sent to bed near the end of their pregnancies to prevent preterm labor, untimely rupture of membranes, placenta previa, incompetent cervix or placental abruption.





According to Maloni, many women leave the hospital and cannot read why they suffer back problems and muscle aches and ar fatigued piece other new mothers seem to bound back after giving birth.





Maloni said she would like bed-rest moms to understand that what they ar experiencing is normal for women wHO have been on bed rest.





They english hawthorn need physical therapy and other interventions to regain the strength to do normal activities like pickings care of other children, doing house tasks or participating in activities in the residential area or with friends, aforementioned Maloni.





Following pitch, these women must sweep over the semipermanent effects of bed reside. Other inquiry has ground these personal effects can be bone red; decreases in body mass, fluid loss and plasma; depression; and muscle weakness.





Maloni will recruit 80 women who have had in effect physical and mental health and had at least 21 days or more than of bed rest prior to their baby's birth.





These women volition be evaluated two days into the study with follow-ups afterward two months and trey months. At the close of testing, Maloni will offer the new intervention to the women in the command group.





The new intervention is a dress of cardiovascular and military posture exercises developed for the elderly, wHO, like new mothers, crataegus laevigata be in a province of physical deterioration.





Women in this mathematical group will be tested for their physical capabilities during a six-minute walk, 30 seconds of sit-stands and two proceedings of stepping in place.





In a prior study on the power of bedrest mothers to function subsequently childbirth, Maloni reported that women wHO were granted the exercises from the Rikkli Jones Senior Fitness Test walked an medium of 217 feet in 4.8 minutes. This was the same level of carrying into action as women in the 70-75 age group.





Maloni has studied the postpartum conditions of bedrest moms until six weeks and set up that many of them are still fatigued. By following the women to the third month, she hopes to discover if longer interposition is need to help women recover lost strength and stamina.









Pregnant woman on bed rest who ar interested in participating in the report are bucked up to visit http://www.fpb.case.edu/bedrest/.





Source: Susan Griffith



Case Western Reserve University




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Harold Budd and Zeitgeist

   
Artist: Harold Budd and Zeitgeist

   Genre(s): 
Ambient
   

---

Discography:


   
 She Is A Phantom

   Year: 1994   
Tracks: 18

---

 

Wizard rock: Harry Potter devotees put wizard tales to music

POTOSI, Mo. - Jen Leffler first escaped into the world of Harry Potter as an adolescent in suburban Chicago. A decade later, the love affair continues. Only now, it means taking road trips to concerts across the country.

Inspired by the characters and story lines from J.K. Rowling's intricate fantasy world, hundreds of bands devoted to the Potter experience have formed in recent several years.

The genre has its own name (wizard rock) and fashion sensibility (checkered scarves and askew neck ties replicate the Hogwarts school uniform) as well as a do-it-yourself aesthetic (most acts book their own shows).

With a decidedly youthful and literate audience, bands such as Draco and the Malfoys, Tom Riddle and Friends and the Moaning Myrtles are as likely to gig in public libraries, bookstores or church basements as at rock clubs.

But the movement has grown big enough to support its own summer festival circuit. On Memorial Day weekend, more than 300 devotees gathered at a YMCA summer camp lodge in the Ozark foothills for Wrockstock 2008, a wizard rock extravaganza featuring 15 bands over three days.

Later this summer, similar events will happen in New York, Chicago and even De Pere, Wis., near Green Bay.

"A lot of people don't have a lot of friends where they come from," said Leffler, who plans to move to Louisville to join a friend she first met online in a wizard rock discussion forum. "And then they find 200 friends here."

While the band names and lyrics pay homage to Rowling's elaborate fictional universe, the music is all over the map, from pensive singer-songwriters with acoustic guitars to blue-eyed soul and banjo-inflected country.

"People might assume that music based on Harry Potter would be kind of gimmicky and shallow," said Matt Maggiacomo, the one-man band known as the Whomping Willows.

Maggiacomo, 29, is a veteran of the Providence, R.I., music scene. But it wasn't until he discovered wizard rock that he was able to quit his day job as technical writer and focus on music full time. A crowd of 500 rapt listeners attended his first show.

"This was my first show where everyone was focused on the music," he said. "A lot of times (before), there were 15 people in the crowd, and they were focused on getting drunk, or talking to other people."

The Missouri festival attracted fans from as far away as Scotland, Wales, Quebec, British Columbia and South Africa - many of whom were visiting the country for the first time.

Forget about New York or the Grand Canyon. For those first-time visitors, the wizard rock community is the real attraction, said festival organizer Abby Hupp.

"They come here and have a sense of belonging," she said. "If you see that even total strangers will love you, it changes you. You become a more open, happy person."

At Wrockstock, the music came with a message. The merchandise table had not only concert T-shirts and compact discs but bracelets calling for an end to genocide in Darfur and literacy-promoting bumper stickers.

As founder of the nonprofit Harry Potter Alliance, Boston resident Andrew Slack taps into the wizard rock world to promote social activism among what he calls the real-world minions of Dumbledore's Army, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry student group that rose up to fight intolerance and defend the teachings of their wise professor of the same name.

"Literature has in recent decades been a solitary experience," said the 28-year-old former sketch comedian. "But it can also be a communal one."

For Slack, that means voter registration booths at wizard rock concerts, or flyers alerting audience members to the threat of media consolidation or global warming.

"We're taking the messages of art and putting them into the real world in a tangible way," he said.

With all seven Potter books now complete, some wizard rock fans fear that the scene could be short-lived.

"There's only so much you can sing about now that it's over," Leffler said.

Yet with three more movies (the seventh and final book will be made into two films) and Florida theme park still on the horizon, most Potter acolytes don't expect the cultural filament to burn out anytime soon.

"I don't think it's going to last forever," said Slack, who didn't read his first Potter book until after graduating from Brandeis University in 2002. "But the Harry Potter fan culture is never really going to go away."

-

On the Web:

Encyclopedia of Wizard Rock: www.wizrocklopedia.com

Harry Potter Alliance: www.thehpalliance.org

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Sir Paul Mccartney - Wombats Flattered At Production Offer From Sir Paul

Scouse trio the Wombats have admitted they are "ridiculously" flattered at Sir Paul McCartney's suggestion of producing an album for them.

Frontman Matt Murphy, drummer Dan Haggis and Norwegian bassist Tord Overland-Knudsen met while studying at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, the school founded by Sir Paul.

And speaking to BBC 6 Music before he played the Liverpool Sound concert as part of the city's European Capital of Culture celebration, the former Beatle offered to produce the three-piece's next album.

"I had one of the guys in one of my classes. It was great. Now, years later they're doing great.

"I don't do much production now but it might be very tempting," he added. "I'm not sure they would want me."

Talking to BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat programme ahead of the Beach Break students' festival, which began in Cornwall on Monday June 9th, Haggis admitted the Wombats were amazed at Sir Paul's suggestion.

"It's ridiculously flattering to have a Beatle like Sir Paul even mentioning us in a sentence," he said.

"We were laughing about it, like it would be an interesting collaboration.

"I think we'd be up for doing a demo and seeing what it was like.

"Imagine kicking back with Sir Paul? Like, 'Yeah, I think we need a bit more hi-hat there Paul.'"

Were the Let's Dance to Joy Division stars to collaborate with Sir Paul, it would not be the first time they had met, Haggis explained.

"[Sir Paul] hands out the diplomas and degrees so I did get to shake his hand.

"I had an eyebrow piercing in at the time and he said, 'We'll have to get a screwdriver for that.'

"I was like, 'Okay, whatever you say!'


10/06/2008 07:48:00

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