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Consumers who tell little white lies to avoid confrontation might find themselves rewarding the people who inconvenienced them, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"Most consumers have told an inquiring server that their cold meal is fine, a hairdresser that they like their unexpected 'new look,' or a friend that his/her too-snug jeans look great," write authors Jennifer J. Argo (University of Alberta) and Baba Shiv (Stanford University). But according to the researchers, white lies have negative repercussions for the people who tell them.

Consumers who feel powerless will choose larger size food portions in an attempt to gain status, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. But there is hope for convincing them that a Big Gulp won't translate to higher ranking.

Consumers need a little help when it comes to imagining using products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Sometimes that means orienting an advertisement toward a dominant hand or helping them picture using the product (like putting a spoon in a soup advertisement).

"Across four studies we show that by simply orienting a product toward one's dominant (vs. non-dominant hand) in a visual advertisement leads to increases in imagined product use," write authors Ryan S. Elder (Brigham Young University) and Aradhna Krishna (University of Michigan).

Consumers are more likely to choose products when marketers withhold some favorable information until late in the choice process, according to the Journal of Consumer Research. But marketers need to walk a fine line to disclose information at just the right time.

People whose basic needs are met get more life satisfaction when they are more connected to others and when they experience greater autonomy, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. But those who live in dire conditions have little hope of achieving such satisfaction.

In a report to be published soon in EPJE¹, researchers from the National University of the South in Bahía Blanca, Argentina studied the condition for model cavity and tunnel structures resembling the binding sites of proteins to stay dry without losing their ability to react, a prerequisite for proteins to establish stable interactions with other proteins in water.

E.P. Schulz and colleagues used models of nanometric-scale hydrophobic cavities and tunnels to understand the influence of geometry on the ability of those structures to stay dry in solution.

Reconstructive surgical approaches can help delay endoprosthetic joint replacement in patients with osteoarthritis. Henning Madry and coauthors introduce such procedures in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[40]: 669-77).

CINCINNATI – Children with certain dopamine system gene variants have an improved response to methylphenidate - the most commonly prescribed medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - in a finding that could help eliminate the guesswork from prescribing effective medications for children with ADHD.

A revolutionary discovery regarding motile cancer cells made by research scientists at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Turku is challenging previous conceptions. The results have been published on July 25, 2011 in the Journal of Cell Biology, one of the most renowned journals in the field.

Finnish researchers found a new mechanism inhibiting the spread and growth of cancer found in motile cells

In a summer with unprecedented weather events, from tornados, floods, fires and hurricanes, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing found that physiological changes associated with aging and the presence of chronic illness make older adults more susceptible to illness or injury, even death, during a disaster.

Research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists advances a strategy for taming the side effects and enhancing the therapeutic benefits of steroids and other medications that work by disrupting the activity of certain hormones.

The approach relies on a small molecule developed at St. Jude. In this study, scientists showed that a compound known as SJ-AK selectively blocked the activity of genes in a cell signaling pathway regulated by thyroid hormone.

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 20 – Exceptional cognitive and physical function in old age leaves a tell-tale immunologic fingerprint, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Likewise, older adults who have mild impairments bear a distinct immunologic pattern, too, according to findings published today in the Public Library of Science: One.

(New York City, October 20, 2011) In the October 20th edition of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, Drs. Claudia Plottel and Martin J. Blaser of the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center, and the Department of Biology at New York University, present a model for understanding how cancer evolves in humans based on an understanding of the bacteria living in our body, the microbiome.

Professor Qin Wenbin from BaoTou Medical College first identified the hemoglobin (Hb) A2 phenomenon 30 years ago. His first paper on this phenomenon was published in Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica, in Chinese, in 1981. Subsequent research investigating its mechanism was published in Chinese in the Chinese Biochemical Journal and Progress in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1991 and more recently in Electrophoresis, in 2010.