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Apollo Medical Holdings, Inc. Announces Strategic Partnership with Benchmark Hospitalists to Provide Hospitalist Services at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center

April 3, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

GLENDALE, Calif.–(Business Wire)–
Apollo Medical Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB:AMEH), a leading provider of hospitalist
services to the healthcare community, today announced that ApolloMed
Hospitalists, one of its affiliated medical groups, has entered into a strategic
partnership with Benchmark Hospitalists, a division of Emergent Medical
Associates, to provide hospitalist services at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical
Center, a 434-bed acute care hospital.

“We are excited about the opportunity to work with Benchmark to expand our
service offering to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. We look forward to
working with Benchmark on this and future collaborative projects,” stated Warren
Hosseinion, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Medical Holdings, Inc.

“Our partnership with Apollo allowed us to put in place a comprehensive
hospitalist solution for Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center,” stated Mark
Bell, M.D., President of Benchmark Hospitalists. “Benchmark is known for its
superior quality, efficiently run programs and we are pleased to be partnering
with ApolloMed who shares our tradition of excellence.”

ApolloMed named Kevin Berger, M.D. as the Hospitalist Medical Director for
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

About Apollo Medical Holdings, Inc.

Apollo is a leading provider of hospitalist services to the healthcare community
in the Greater Los Angeles area. The company intends to capitalize on the
growing market for hospital-based physicians, such as hospitalists, or
physicians with expertise in hospital medicine. There are 4900 acute care
hospitals in the U.S., with over 35 million annual admissions. Total U.S.
spending on hospital care is over $650 billion, and is expected to increase to
$1.3 trillion by 2016. There are tremendous inefficiencies in the delivery of
inpatient care and a high rate of hospital errors. Both of these are drivers for
the growth of hospital-based medicine. Apollo and its affiliated medical groups
have proven expertise in providing excellent and efficient care to hospitalized
patients.

To learn more about ApolloMed, please visit our website: www.apollomed.net

About Benchmark Hospitalists

Headquartered in Manhattan Beach, CA, Benchmark is a premier provider of
hospitalist services in Southern California. Benchmark`s proprietary approach,
focus on clinical excellence and patient satisfaction, as well as its deep
experience in all aspects of hospital management, combine to allow the creation
of unique hospitalist solutions for each client and achieve superior results.
Benchmark has a proven track record of improving key performance and
satisfaction indicators and demonstrating a significant ROI on its hospitalist
programs.

To learn more about Benchmark, please visit our website: www.benchmark.md

ApolloMed PR Contact:
Kyle Francis
818-507-4617
or
Benchmark PR Contact:
Alecia Waisanen
424-241-1595
awaisanen@benchmark.md

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‘Love bug bites’ Kerry Katona, Peter Andre

March 30, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, March 30(ANI): Kerry Katona and Peter Andre have spent a second night together in the recent past, it has emerged.

First, Katona met him at Manchester’s Apollo and then headed to Liverpool for his UK tour.

“Who knows what could happen? They’ve known each other since being in the I’m A Celebrity jungle. It’s early days, but they obviously like each other,” the Daily Star quoted a source as saying.

Meanwhile, Katona has hired the same lawyers Peter had recruited for his divorce in her custody battle with husband Mark Croft, 39.

However, the pair’s spokesman said: “Kerry came to see the show in Manchester and wanted to bring her children to Liverpool. That’s all it was.” (ANI)

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1st century A.D. colossal statue of Greek God Apollo unearthed in Turkey

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 9 (ANI): Italian archaeologists have unearthed a 1st century A.D. colossal statue of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, light, music and poetry, from white calcified cliffs in southwestern Turkey.

Colossal statues were very popular in antiquity, as evidenced by the lost giant statues of the Colossus of Rhodes and the Colossus of Nero.

Most of them vanished long ago, with their material re-used in other building projects.

“This colossal statue of Apollo is really a unique finding. Such statues are extremely rare in Asia Minor. Only a dozen still survive,” team leader Francesco D’Andria, director of the Institute of Archaeological Heritage, Monuments and Sites at Italy’s National Research Council in Lecce, told Discovery News.

Split in two huge marble fragments, divided along the bust and the lower part of the sculpture, the 1st century A.D. statue was unearthed at the World Heritage Site of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale.

Founded around 190 B.C. by Eumenes II, King of Pergamum (197 B.C.-159 B.C.), Hierapolis was given over to Rome in 133 B.C.

The Hellenistic city grew into a flourishing Roman city, with temples, a theatre and popular sacred hot springs, believed to have healing properties.

Standing at more than four meters (13 feet) in height, the newly discovered statue, which is missing the head and the arms, might have been one of the most impressive sights in the city.

“It depicts the Greek god Apollo sitting on a throne and holding the cithara with his left arms. The god wears a wonderfully draped tunic. The cloth has a transparency effect to reveal mighty muscles,” said D’Andria.

Inspired by the great classical masterpieces, the artist did not pay the same peculiar attention to the back of the statue.

“This shows that the sculpture was placed against a wall and was supposed to be seen only frontally,” D’Andria noted.

Standing in all its massive regality, the statue was particularly important for the city, since Apollo was venerated as Hierapolis’ divine founder.

The colossal statue was probably the main sculpture at the sanctuary of Apollo, which was intentionally built over an active fault.

“Hierapolis is a unique site, and archaeologists are bringing to light incredible findings each year. As with all the other ancient buildings, the statue will be virtually reconstructed in full detail,” Francesco Gabellone, an architect at the National Research Council in Lecce, told Discovery News. (ANI)

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Barrage of small meteorite impacts cause the moon to “hum”

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, September 9 (ANI): A new research has suggested that a steady barrage of small meteorite impacts cause the moon to “hum”.

But, no seismometers sent to the moon to date have been sensitive enough to hear the “hum”.

According to a report in New Scientist, Philippe Lognonne at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris and colleagues decided to work out how loud the ring is.

The team estimated the meteorite population in the solar neighbourhood, and calculated the likely seismic signals that would be created by a range of meteorite sizes and velocities as they strike the moon.

To determine how the vibrations from these impacts would be seen by seismometers, the team used data taken by Apollo seismometers four decades ago.

These measured the vibrations created by the landings of lunar modules and spent rocket stages.

Since the precise locations and timing of these landings were known, they could be used to gauge how long it would take vibrations caused by meteorite impacts to travel through the moon, and how much the signals might dim.

Their calculations revealed space rocks with masses ranging from a gram to a kilogram do indeed create a hum, but it is subtle.

Earth’s hum, created by pounding waves, is more than 1000 times louder.

“This shows that all planets may hum, those with and those without atmosphere,” said Lognonne.

“The moon-hum’s quietness means future lunar seismometers should be able to peek deep within the moon without the hum creating problematic background noise, he added.

Instead, seismometers can focus on measuring waves created by moonquakes, tremors created by a variety of sources, including the tidal tug of the Earth.

Because seismic waves are sensitive to the type, arrangement and density of rocks they pass through, studying the quakes can reveal more about the moon’s interior.

The network of seismometers left by the Apollo missions has been shut down since 1977, so Lognonne hopes more sensitive instruments will be sent to the moon soon.

These could reach deeper than the Apollo network to measure the size of the moon’s core.

“I think the study is a great idea,” said Clive Neal of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, who was not associated with the research.

“Estimating the actual background noise is critical for designing the next generation of seismometers to go to the moon,” he added. (ANI)

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”Moon rock’ given to Holland by Armstrong, Aldrin just ‘petrified wood’

August 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 29 (ANI): A piece of rock from the moon which Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin had gifted to Holland is claimed to be fake.

Curators at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum say that the “lunar rock”, valued at 308,000 pounds, is in fact just a petrified wood.

“It’s a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered. We can laugh about it,” the Telegraph quoted Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation as saying.

In fact, researchers at Amsterdam’s Free University knew it wasn’t moon rock at the first look. They say that their speculation was later confirmed by tests.

Frank Beunk, a geologist involved in the investigation: “It’s a nondescript, pretty-much-worthless stone.”

Now, the United States Embassy in The Hague is carrying out an investigation into the affair.

Armstrong, Michael Collins and Aldrin had given the rock to Willem Drees, a former Dutch leader, during a global tour after their landing in moon almost 50 years ago.

It is one of the moon rocks given to more than 100 countries following lunar missions in 1969 and the 1970s.

Former American ambassador to the Netherlands J. William Middendorf had presented it to Drees, which was donated to the Rijksmuseum after his death in 1988.

Middendorf said: “I do remember that Drees was very interested in the little piece of stone. But that it’s not real, I don’t know anything about that.” (ANI)

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Comets, not asteroids, scarred Moon’s face about 4 billion years ago

July 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 28 (ANI): A new study of ancient rocks in Greenland has suggested that icy comets – not rocky asteroids – launched a dramatic assault on the Earth and moon around 3.85 billion years ago, thus causing the lunar surface to become scarred.

“We can see craters on the moon’s surface with the naked eye, but nobody actually knew what caused them – was it rocks, was it iron, was it ice?” Uffe Grae Jorgensen, an astronomer at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, told New Scientist.

“It’s exciting to find signs that it was actually ice,” he said.

Evidence suggests that the Earth and moon had both formed around 4.5 billion years ago.

But, almost all the craters on the moon date to a later period, the “Late Heavy Bombardment” 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago, when around 100 million billion tonnes of rock or ice crashed onto the lunar surface.

To find out whether asteroids or comets were the main culprits for the bombardment, Jorgensen decided to measure levels of the element iridium in ancient terrestrial rocks.

Iridium is rare on the Earth’s surface because almost all of it bound to iron and sank into the Earth’s core soon after the planet had formed. But iridium is relatively common in comets and meteorites.

His team calculated the amount of iridium that asteroids would leave on the Earth and moon compared to comets.

Because comets have more volatile elements and higher impact speeds due to their more elongated orbits around the sun, they would create giant plumes on impact, allowing more iridium to escape into space than during asteroid impacts.

The team predicted that asteroid bombardment would leave iridium levels of 18,000 and 10,000 parts per trillion in rocks on the Earth and moon respectively, while the same figures for comet bombardment would be about 130 and 10.

Ancient moon rocks returned by NASA’s Apollo missions have already confirmed that the lunar iridium levels are 10 parts per trillion or less.

To find out the terrestrial value, Jorgensen’s team sampled some of the world’s oldest rocks from Greenland, aged 3.8 billion years, and asked a Japanese laboratory to assess their iridium levels more accurately than ever before.

They contained iridium levels of 150 parts per trillion, which strongly suggests comets, rather than asteroids, caused the violent bombardment. (ANI)

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Mysore shutdown evokes mixed response

July 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Mysore July 4 (ANI): A dawn to dusk shutdown call given by the Hindu Jagaran Vedike in protest against an attack on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) youth leader evoked a mixed response here today.

Normal life was partially affected by the shutdown.

It may be recalled that a mob armed with weapons attacked Giridhar, the President of Mysore unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), and his friend Wajid on Friday evening. Giridhar is said to in critical condition at Mysore’s Apollo Hospital.

Police said that some persons have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Meanwhile, Karnataka’s Home Minister V.S.Acharya is visiting Mysore this evening to asses the situation and expected to visit the riot-hit areas. (ANI)

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Snoop Dogg, Buzz Aldrin team up for rap single Rocket Experience

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, June 25 (ANI): Snoop Dogg has teamed up with Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin to record a rap single Rocket Experience.

Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said he had reached his second mission of becoming a rap star, thanks to the collaboration with the hip hop artist.

Aldrin has continued his attempts to revive interest in space exploration and the track video, he revealed, was one such step.

“Young people have lost any interest in space that isn’t in a video game or a movie house. Many don’t really know that Man has stood on the Moon,” Times Online quoted him as saying.

“But these incredible rappers speak to the new generations and know how to reach them. The Americans who will take Man to Mars are already born and they don’t even know that space is Man’s fate,” he added. (ANI)

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Morrissey celebrates 50th birthday with fans

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 25 (ANI): British singer Morrissey celebrated his 50 birthday in a jam-packed musical event in his hometown on May 22.

Despite being asked to cancel his shows to recover from a mystery illness, the singer seemed healthy and in high spirits as he celebrated half a century at England’s Manchester Apollo.

Morrissey was also seen shaking hands with his fans hands and cracking jokes about his “fifty gruesome years”, before his backing band surprised him by launching into a version of Happy Birthday, which the crowd sang along to.

According to Contactmusic, he responded: “I’m not 50, I’m actually 40/10.”

The tickets for the special birthday gig were sold out within 15 minutes of the opening. (ANI)

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Asteroids may have boosted life on Earth 3.9 billion years ago

May 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 21 (ANI): A new study has indicated that the bombardment of Earth by asteroids 3.9 billion years ago may have enhanced early life rather then wipe it out.

The study, by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers, determined that the bombardment of Earth nearly 4 billion years ago by asteroids as large as the US state of Kansas would not have had the firepower to extinguish potential early life on the planet and may even have given it a boost.

Impact evidence from lunar samples, meteorites and the pockmarked surfaces of the inner planets paints a picture of a violent environment in the solar system during the Hadean Eon 4.5 to 3.8 billion years ago, particularly through a cataclysmic event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment about 3.9 million years ago.

Although many believe the bombardment would have sterilized Earth, the new study shows it would have melted only a fraction of Earth’s crust, and that microbes could well have survived in subsurface habitats, insulated from the destruction.

“These new results push back the possible beginnings of life on Earth to well before the bombardment period 3.9 billion years ago,” said CU-Boulder Research Associate Oleg Abramov.

“It opens up the possibility that life emerged as far back as 4.4 billion years ago, about the time the first oceans are thought to have formed,” he added.

The researchers used data from Apollo moon rocks, impact records from the moon, Mars and Mercury, and previous theoretical studies to build three-dimensional computer models that replicate the bombardment.

Abramov and CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Stephen Mojzsis plugged in asteroid size, frequency and distribution estimates into their simulations to chart the damage to the Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, which is thought to have lasted for 20 million to 200 million years.

The 3-D models allowed Abramov and Mojzsis to monitor temperatures beneath individual craters to assess heating and cooling of the crust following large impacts in order to evaluate habitability.

The study indicated that less than 25 percent of Earth’s crust would have melted during such a bombardment.

“Even under the most extreme conditions we imposed, Earth would not have been completely sterilized by the bombardment,” said Abramov.

Instead, hydrothermal vents may have provided sanctuaries for extreme, heat-loving microbes known as “hyperthermophilic bacteria” following bombardments, said Mojzsis.

Even if life had not emerged by 3.9 billion years ago, such underground havens could still have provided a “crucible” for life’s origin on Earth, Mojzsis added. (ANI)

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Flowers may bloom on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa

May 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 6 (ANI): Scientists have suggested that spacecraft should hunt for signs of life on Jupiter’s ice-covered moon Europa, since it would be detectable there in the form of blooming flowers.

Europa, which is thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell, has long been a target for astrobiologists, who suspect the interior could be salubrious for life.

But, digging deep into the moon’s icy shell could be difficult. Estimates of the thickness of the ice have ranged between less than a kilometre to more than 100 km.

Life could be visible from orbiting spacecraft, however, if it made a home in cracks in Europa’s shell that connect the surface to the interior, Physicist and futurist Freeman Dyson told New Scientist.

Such life might take the form of flowers with a parabolic shape that focuses the dim sunlight falling on Europa on the interior of the plant.

Flowers with such shapes are found in Arctic climes on Earth, where the plants have evolved to maximize solar energy.

According to Dyson, Europa flowers could be detectable through a phenomenon called retroreflection, in which light gets reflected back to its source.

This optical effect is seen in light reflected from animals’ eyes, and was used in the design of road signs and mirrors left behind on the moon by Apollo astronauts.

Although Dyson’s ‘sunflowers’ may get their start on Europa, they could conceivably spread elsewhere in the solar system.

“You can imagine once you have flowers that get nourished from below, they could evolve in the direction of being independent,” Dyson said.

“If plants spread to smaller, more distant objects in the solar system’s two cometary reservoirs, the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, they would be less subject to gravity and could easily grow in size to maximize solar collection,” he added.

Europa will be one of two moons explored in depth by a planned collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency beginning in 2026,when a pair of orbiters are set to reach Jupiter. (ANI)

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Karunanidhi admitted to Chennai hospital

May 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Chennai, May 3 (ANI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi was admitted to the Apollo hospital on Sunday morning following complaints of high fever.

According to doctors, the 85-year old Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) chief is undergoing treatment.

Karunanidhi also complained of severe back pain, sources said.

Karunanidhi had undergone a major surgery on his back in February. (ANI)

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NASA may abandon plans for moon base

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, April 30 (ANI): NASA’s acting administrator, Chris Scolese, has told lawmakers that the agency will probably not build an outpost on the moon as originally planned.

According to a report in New Scientist, Scolese’s comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.

NASA has been working towards returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and building a permanent base there.

But, some space analysts and advocacy groups like the Planetary Society have urged the agency to cancel plans for a permanent moon base, carry out shorter moon missions instead, and focus on getting astronauts to Mars.

Under Scolese’s predecessor, Mike Griffin, the agency held firm to its moon base plans.

But, the comments by Scolese, who will lead NASA until President Barack Obama nominates the next administrator, suggest a shift in the agency’s direction.

NASA’s agenda was hinted at by Scolese when he spoke to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies of the House Committee on Appropriations.

Scolese was asked repeatedly whether NASA could still make it to the moon by 2020 under the proposed 2010 budget, but failed to give a clear yes or no, and his answers suggested the agency’s plans were in flux.

“We were looking at an outpost on the moon, as the basis for that (2020) estimate and that one is being revisited,” he said.

“It will probably be less than an outpost on the moon, but where it fits between sorties, single trips, to the moon to various parts and an outpost is really going to be dependent on the studies that we’re going to be doing,” he added.

“Recall (that) the Vision (for Space Exploration) was not just to go to the moon as it was in Apollo, it was to utilize space to go on to Mars and to go to other places,” said Scolese.

Scolese’s further comments hinted that the agency’s plans might shift to include a greater emphasis on destinations beyond the moon.

According to him, “So what I would like to see from NASA over time is an architecture that will give us flexibility for taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit and allowing us to have options for what we can do at the moon as well as other destinations like Mars or an asteroid, so that there are options on what we do in 2020,” he said. (ANI)

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Aliens do exist but US govt hides the truth, says ex-astronaut

April 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, April 22 (ANI): There is extraterrestrial life and it is being concealed by the United States government, claims ex-NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell.itchell made the claims at the fifth annual X-Conference – a meeting of those who believe in UFOs and other life forms.

Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, said that alien life does exist but the truth is being covered up by the U.S. govt.

The 78-year-old also said that he had tried investigating the 1947 ‘Roswell Incident’, which some believe was the crash-landing of a UFO, but had been thwarted by military authorities.We’re not alone. Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. … We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there,” the Telegraph quoted Mitchell as saying.

“I urge those who are doubtful: Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on. Because there really is no doubt we are being visited. The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far-reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time,” Mitchell added.

A rep for NASA told CNN: “NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere else – period.” (ANI)

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Moon dust becomes eco hazard to astronauts due to Sun’s elevation

April 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 18 (ANI): A new study has revealed that the Moon dust, which causes hazards like ruining scientific experiments and endangering astronauts’ health, is influenced by the Sun’s elevation.

Lunar dust has long been described as the No. 1 environmental hazard on the Moon.

It causes miscellaneous havoc: from destroying scientific equipment deployed on the lunar surface, to creating blinding dust clouds that interfere with lunar landings.

It also may be a health hazard to space travelers, since dust clinging to space suits detaches when astronauts reenter their lunar module.

It then floats free in zero gravity, ready to be inhaled, during the 3-day journey back to Earth.

Now, a study reveals that forces compelling lunar dust to cling to surfaces, change during the lunar day with the elevation of the sun.

The study analyzes the interactions on the Moon among electrostatic adhesive forces, the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays, and lunar gravity.

It concludes that the stickiness of lunar dust on a vertical surface changes as the sun moves higher in the sky, eventually allowing the very weak lunar gravity to pull the dust off.

“Before you can manage the dust, you have to understand what makes it sticky,” said Brian O’Brien, the sole author of the study.

He used data from the matchbox-sized Dust Detector Experiments deployed on the Moon’s surface in 1969 during the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions.

O’Brien analyzed the behavior of dust on horizontal and vertical solar cells in one of the Apollo dust-detecting experiments.

On the first morning of the experiment, the lunar module – 130 meters (426 feet) away from the dust detector – took off from the Moon’s surface.

The blast of exhaust gases completely cleansed a dusty horizontal solar cell, because it was illuminated only by weak early-morning light and thus the adhesive force of dust was faint.

But, only half the dust covering the vertical cell was removed by the blast, because its surface faced east – into more intense sunlight- and thus the sticky forces were stronger.

O’Brien found that later, as the sun rose and the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays on the dusty vertical surface facing east decreased, the electrostatic forces on the vertical cell weakened.

The tipping point was reached when the sun was at an angle of about 45 degrees.

Then, the pull of lunar gravity counteracted the adhesive forces and made the dust start falling off. All dust had fallen by lunar night.

“These are the first measurements of the collapse of the cohesive forces that make lunar dust so sticky,” O’Brien said. (ANI)

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UPDATE1 -Bridgepoint IPO prices below range-source

April 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

(Adds analyst comment, background, byline)

By Phil Wahba

NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) – Bridgepoint Education Inc, BPI.N an operator of online and campus universities, became the third U.S. company to go public this year, pricing its IPO at $10.50 per share, below its estimated range of $14 to $16, a source with direct knowledge of the deal said on Tuesday.

San Diego-based Bridgepoint sold 13.5 million shares, raising $141.75 million, the source said, less than the company’s original estimate that the IPO could raise as much as $216 million.

The deal’s structure, in which most of the shares were sold by an existing shareholder, and a recent drop in the stocks of Bridgepoint’s rivals caused the deal to price about 30 percent less than estimated, an analyst said.

“There are two reasons that I see derailed an offer whose numbers at first glance looked outstanding. First, the amount of insider selling, and second the stocks of the comparables have fallen,” said Scott Sweet, senior managing director with research firm IPO Boutique.

About 81 percent of the shares being sold are held by private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

Rivals Grand Canyon Education Inc (LOPE.O) and Apollo Group (APOL.O) have seen their shares drop about 22 percent and 30 percent, respectively, since their January highs.

Grand Canyon, which operates online universities and campuses in the Southwest and is Bridgepoint’s most direct publicly traded competitor, launched its own IPO in November, but also had to settle for less than its original estimate range, lowering the price range by $4 on the day of deal.

The underwriters, led by Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) and JP Morgan (JPM.N), have the option to buy up to 2.025 million shares additional shares to cover over-allotments.

The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “BPI” and begin trading Wednesday. (Reporting by Phil Wahba)

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Bridgepoint IPO prices 30 percent below range: source

April 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bridgepoint Education Inc, BPI.N an operator of online and campus universities, became the third U.S. company to go public this year, but priced its deal 30 percent below the midpoint of its estimate range of $14 to $16, a source with knowledge of the deal said on Tuesday.

San Diego-based Bridgepoint sold 13.5 million shares for $10.50 each, raising $141.75 million, the source said, far less than the company’s original estimate that the IPO could raise as much as $216 million.

The deal’s structure, in which most of the shares were sold by an existing shareholder with very little money going to the company, and a recent drop in the stocks of Bridgepoint’s rivals caused the deal to be priced less than expected, an analyst said.

About 81 percent of the shares being sold are held by private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

Rivals Grand Canyon Education Inc (LOPE.O) and Apollo Group (APOL.O) have seen their shares drop about 22 percent and 30 percent, respectively, since their January highs.

Enrollment and revenue at Bridgepoint grew by about 150 percent in the year ended December 31, 2008, according to a regulatory filing, but questions as to whether the company can sustain that pace led investors to demand a lower price, an analyst said.

“They have taken low hanging fruit — those were small colleges,” said Francis Gaskins, president of research firm IPO Desktop, in reference to the schools Bridgepoint has acquired in recent years, including Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa, and University of the Rockies in Colorado Springs.

It may prove harder to acquire additional colleges to spur growth, and the online university industry is more competitive now, Gaskins added.

As of December 31, 2008, Bridgepoint student enrollment was 31,558, with revenue of $218.3 million, and it offered about 44 degree programs with 55 specializations, according to a filing.

Bridgepoint is the third IPO so far in 2009, following the $828 million deal in February by pediatrics nutrition maker Mead Johnson Nutrition Co (MJN.N) and the $120 million IPO in early April by Chinese video game maker Changyou.com Ltd (CYOU.O).

Both deals priced at the top of their estimate ranges and rose by 10 percent and 25 percent, respectively, in their trading debuts.

Bridgepoint IPO’s underwriters, led by Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) and JP Morgan (JPM.N), have the option to buy up to 2.025 million additional shares to cover over-allotments.

The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “BPI” and begin trading Wednesday.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing Bernard Orr)

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NASA selects material for heat shield that will protect next gen space explorers

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 8 (ANI): NASA has chosen the material for a heat shield that will protect a new generation of space explorers when they return from the moon.

After extensive study, NASA has selected the Avcoat ablator system for the Orion crew module.

Orion is part of the Constellation Program that is developing the next-generation spacecraft system for human exploration of the moon and further destinations in the solar system.

The Orion crew module, which will launch atop an Ares I rocket, is targeted to begin carrying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2015 and to the moon in 2020.

Orion will face extreme conditions during its voyage to the moon and on the journey home. On the blistering return through Earth’s atmosphere, the module will encounter temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heating rates may be up to five times more extreme than rates for missions returning from the International Space Station.

Orion’s heat shield, the dish-shaped thermal protection system at the base of the spacecraft, will endure the most heat and will erode, or “ablate,” in a controlled fashion, transporting heat away from the crew module during its descent through the atmosphere.

To protect the spacecraft and its crew from such severe conditions, the Orion Project Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston identified a team to develop the thermal protection system, or TPS, heat shield.

For more than three years, NASA’s Orion Thermal Protection System Advanced Development Project considered eight different candidate materials, including the two final candidates, Avcoat and Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, or PICA, both of which have proven successful in previous space missions.

Avcoat was used for the Apollo capsule heat shield and on select regions of the space shuttle orbiter in its earliest flights. It was put back into production for the study.

It is made of silica fibers with an epoxy-novalic resin filled in a fiberglass-phenolic honeycomb and is manufactured directly onto the heat shield substructure and attached as a unit to the crew module during spacecraft assembly.

NASA, working with Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin, recommended Avcoat as the more robust, reliable and mature system.

“The biggest challenge with Avcoat has been reviving the technology to manufacture the material such that its performance is similar to what was demonstrated during the Apollo missions,” said John Kowal, Orion’s thermal protection system manager at Johnson.

“Once that had been accomplished, the system evaluations clearly indicated that Avcoat was the preferred system,” he added. (ANI)

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World’s biggest telescope will search heavens for planets

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Apr 5 (ANI): Scientists are planning to build a giant telescope that will be powerful enough to identify habitable planets like Earth in distant solar systems.

Astronomers claim the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will house a mirror the width of five double decker buses placed end to end, will be the first optical telescope capable of picking out the weak pinpricks of light that are reflected from planets as they orbit stars.

The scientific breakthrough will be able to spot rocky Earth-like planets up to 100 million million miles away, reports The Telegraph.

Light’s telltale signatures coming from such planets could also reveal whether there is water on their surfaces, which gases are in their atmospheres, and even if they may harbour life itself.

The 1 billion euro E-ELT will have more mirror glass than all the other telescopes in the world put together.

It is expected to be so powerful that if astronomers were to use it to peer at the Moon, they would be able to see the car sized lunar rover that was left on the moon by astronauts during the Apollo missions.

Isobel Hook, joint chair of the E-ELT science working group and an astronomer at Oxford University, said: “The astronomy community has been moving towards building progressively bigger telescopes to get sharper images.

“The resolution of the ELT is going to allow us to see objects and structures in the universe that we have been blind to until know.” (ANI)

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‘We’ll keep her soul alive forever’

April 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Sixteen-and-a-half-month-old Abhilasha Rahurika became the youngest cadaver donor in the country when her parents agreed to donate her organs after she died of liver failure. What made this donation truly touching is the twist of fate that Abhilasha’s parents brought her to Delhi from Bhopal looking for a liver donor, but ended up donating her organs.

They donated her kidneys and corneas, but doctors could not implant her heart as they could not find a matching recipient. In India, parents of only five children under two years have donated organs before.

Abhilasha, who was admitted to Indraprastha Apollo Hospital for a liver transplant in early February, was declared brain dead on February 28. She could not undergo a liver transplant because she had an underlying neurological condition – Hydrocephalus or abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the cavities of the brain – that would not have allowed her to survive the surgery.

“We couldn’t save her but if through her we manage to save even one life, we’ll keep her soul alive forever,” said Rajendra Rahurikar, Abhilasha’s father, a Bhopal-based businessman.

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