Body

Nearly every body of water, from a puddle or a pond to a vast ocean, contains microscopic organisms that live attached to rocks, plants, and animals. These so-called sessile suspension feeders are critical to aquatic ecosystems and play an important role in cleaning up environmental contaminants by consuming bacteria.

Anyone who has suffered through sleepless nights due to uncontrollable itching knows that not all itching is the same. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis explains why.

Working in mice, the scientists have shown that chronic itching, which can occur in many medical conditions, from eczema and psoriasis to kidney failure and liver disease, is different from the fleeting urge to scratch a mosquito bite.

Parvoviruses cause no harm in humans, but they can attack and kill cancer cells. Since 1992, scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have been studying these viruses with the aim of developing a viral therapy to treat glioblastomas, a type of aggressively growing brain cancer. A clinical trial has been conducted since 2011 at the Heidelberg University Neurosurgery Hospital to test the safety of treating cancer patients with the parvovirus H-1.

Consumers like to reap the benefits of discounts immediately (not later), according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Consumers enjoy discounted products much less if they have to wait for them.

Consumers appreciate being able to share their perks with others, and will sacrifice exclusivity to do so, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"Companies spend billions of dollars each year on customer loyalty or VIP programs in an effort to reward loyal customers and make them feel both special and a sense of status," write authors Brent McFerran (University of Michigan) and Jennifer J. Argo (University of Alberta). Many loyalty programs, like airline lounges, luxury boxes, and hotel rooms extend benefits to guests of the VIP, or "an entourage."

When a shop is authentic and the workers are friendly, it can feel like a second home for consumers, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The bottomless pit of insect biodiversity has yielded a treasure trove of new species of jewel-like clown beetles. In a paper published today in the journal ZooKeys, Michael Caterino and Alexey Tishechkin of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History describe 85 new species in the genus Baconia, renowned for their brilliant coloration and bizarrely flattened body forms. The new species bring the genus up to 116 total species.

Ottawa (October 15th, 2013) A new expert panel report, entitled The Health Effects of Conducted Energy Weapons, was released today by the Council of Canadian Academies in collaboration with the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

The assessment was conducted by a 14-member panel of distinguished multidisciplinary experts and chaired by the Honourable Justice Stephen T. Goudge from the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The Expert Panel was asked to consider the state of knowledge about the medical and physiological impacts of conducted energy weapons (CEWs).

Research led by physician-scientists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has produced a breakthrough discovery in diagnosing retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the United States.

DALLAS – Oct. 14, 2013 – A specific protein once thought to exist only in the brain may play a crucial role in a deadly form of thyroid cancer, as well as other cancers, and provide a fresh target for researchers seeking ways to stop its progression, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report today in Cancer Cell.

DALLAS – Oct. 15, 2013 – A new type of antibiotic called a PPMO, which works by blocking genes essential for bacterial reproduction, successfully killed a multidrug-resistant germ common to health care settings, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

The technology and new approach offer potential promise against the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, the researchers said.

An international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen have successfully developed an innovative 3D method to grow miniature pancreas from progenitor cells. The future goal is to use this model to help in the fight against diabetes. The research results has just been published in the scientific journal Development.

Scientists at Rice University are enhancing the natural antioxidant properties of an element found in a car's catalytic converter to make it useful for medical applications.

Rice chemist Vicki Colvin led a team that created small, uniform spheres of cerium oxide and gave them a thin coating of fatty oleic acid to make them biocompatible. The researchers say their discovery has the potential to help treat traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest and Alzheimer's patients and can guard against radiation-induced side effects suffered by cancer patients.

WASHINGTON D.C. Oct. 11, 2013 -- Imagine if the "information superhighway" had HOV lanes so that data could be stored, processed and disseminated many times faster than possible with today's electronics. Researchers in the United States and China have teamed to develop such a speedway for future devices, an exotic type of electrical conductor called a topological insulator (TI).

Los Angeles, CA (October 14, 2013) Public administrators draw on a number of different sources to inform their work including the news, blogs, podcasts, etc. But why aren't they drawing on scholarly research from published academics as a key resource and what can scholars themselves do about it? More than they might think, suggests new research.

A new article published in State and Local Government Review (a SAGE Journal) outlines how to conduct and disseminate academic research that is relevant, collaborative, and accessible to local government practitioners.