Body

One firm's loss is another's gain

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Good news for savvy businesses: Customers who walk through your doors unhappy with another firm's service can be won back with simple gestures of goodwill.

Consider a dissatisfied airline passenger. A hotel can score loyalty points by providing the traveler a room upgrade or perhaps even a simple apology for the airline's failure, said Clay Voorhees, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University.

Second protein associated with common cause of kidney failure identified

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - An international team of researchers including Jon Klein, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Merchant, Ph.D., of the University of Louisville has identified a protein that turns a person's immune system against itself in a form of kidney disease called membranous nephropathy (MN). The findings are published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is the second protein associated with MN and the development of an autoimmune response.

74 percent of parents would remove their kids from daycare if others are unvaccinated

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Most parents agree that all children in daycare centers should be vaccinated, and that daycare providers should be checking vaccine records every year, according to the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

Second protein associated with common cause of kidney failure identified

Philadelphia, PA (November 17, 2014) -- An international team of researchers from France, Germany, and the US have identified a protein that turns a person's immune system against itself in a form of kidney disease called membranous nephropathy (MN). The new research was presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 in Philadelphia and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

DAPT study favored 30 over 12 months of DAPT for lower clot and heart attack risk

CHICAGO and BOSTON - Nov. 16, 2014 - The Harvard Clinical Research Institute (HCRI) announced today results of the DAPT Study, a major international study that investigated the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT, the combination of aspirin and a thienopyridine/antiplatelet medication to reduce the risk of blood clots) following coronary stent implantation.

Extinction risk not the answer for reef futures

Leading coral reef scientists in Australia and the USA say there needs to be a new approach to protecting the future of marine ecosystems, with a shift away from the current focus on extinction threat.

"Extinction is the final endpoint, but coral reefs are in deep trouble long before we get to that point. We need to take action much earlier," says Professor David Bellwood from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University.

"The goal should be to maintain reefs that can support corals, fish and humans" Professor Bellwood says.

Less sex plus more greens equals a longer life

Doctors tell us that the frenzied pace of the modern 24-hour lifestyle -- in which we struggle to juggle work commitments with the demands of family and daily life -- is damaging to our health. But while life in the slow lane may be better, will it be any longer? It will if you're a reptile.

Infection-fighting B cells go with the flow

But when it comes to leaving the bone marrow, B cells can afford to be lazy. João Pereira and colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine show that B cells actively migrate around the bone marrow with the help of CXCR4 and an integrin called VCAM-1. Without CXCR4, the cells slowed down and many stopped moving entirely, in part due to decreased expression of VCAM-1. For those cells near exit sites, decreased CXCR4 and VCAM-1 allowed them to be passively swept out of the bone marrow with the blood flow.

Chlamydia knock out the body's own cancer defence

This news release is available in German.

Tiny fish provides giant insight into how organisms adapt to changing environment

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University-Dartmouth College team has identified genes and regulatory patterns that allow some organisms to alter their body form in response to environmental change.

Understanding how an organism adopts a new function to thrive in a changing environment has implications for molecular evolution and many areas of science including climate change and medicine, especially in regeneration and wound healing.

Automated reminders improve medication adherence and cholesterol control

November 17, 2014, PORTLAND, Ore. -- People who received automated reminders were more likely to refill their blood pressure and cholesterol medications, according to a study published today in a special issue of the American Journal of Managed Care.

The study, which included more than 21,000 Kaiser Permanente members, found that the average improvement in medication adherence was only about 2 percentage points, but the authors say that in a large population, even small changes can make a big difference.

Insect-resistant maize could increase yields and decrease pesticide use in Mexico

This news release is available in Spanish.

Although maize was originally domesticated in Mexico, the country's average yield per hectare is 38% below the world's average. In fact, Mexico imports 30% of its maize from foreign sources to keep up with internal demand.

Evolutionary constraints revealed in diversity of fish skulls

In the aquatic environment, suction feeding is far more common than biting as a way to capture prey. A new study shows that the evolution of biting behavior in eels led to a remarkable diversification of skull shapes, indicating that the skull shapes of most fish are limited by the structural requirements for suction feeding.

"When you look at the skulls of biters, the diversity is astounding compared to suction feeders," said Rita Mehta, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.

A new approach to fighting chronic myeloid leukemia

Chronic myeloid leukemia develops when a gene mutates and causes an enzyme to become hyperactive, causing blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow to grow rapidly into abnormal cells. The enzyme, Abl-kinase, is a member of the "kinase" family of enzymes, which serve as an "on" or "off" switch for many functions in our cells. In chronic myeloid leukemia, the hyperactive Abl-kinase is targeted with drugs that bind to a specific part of the enzyme and block it, aiming to ultimately kill the fast-growing cancer cell.

Creating trust in the time of Ebola

One of the key reasons the Ebola outbreak got out of control in West Africa in the early days of the crisis was a lack of trust among community members, frontline health workers and the broader health system, suggests new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research.