Suppose there were signs in a restaurant bathroom telling customers that they must wash their hands. Would customers obey them? It really depends on the tone of the sign and whether the message praises or scolds, says a forthcoming study in the Journal of Marketing Research. According to the study, to persuade customers to behave in a certain way, businesses should praise with an assertive tone and scold with a non-assertive tone.
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Of the hundreds of genes that can be mutated in a single case of melanoma, only a handful may be true "drivers" of cancer. In research that appeared today in Nature Genetics, a Weizmann Institute of Science team has now revealed one of the drivers of a particularly deadly subset of melanomas - one that is still seeing a rise in new cases. This gene is a newly identified member of a group of genes called tumor suppressor genes. It is mutated in some 5.4% of melanomas.
Bethesda, MD (Nov. 2, 2015) -- Leading scientists have joined together and called for an interdisciplinary, public-private initiative focused on the microbiome. The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) applauds this call for a formal approach to understanding microbial communities critical to all ecosystems, particularly the human body.
Beijing, Oct. 30, 2015: Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications (CVIA), a new journal affiliated with the Great Wall-International Congress of Cardiology, was introduced today at the opening ceremony of GWICC by Congress Chairman Prof. Changsheng Ma.
C. Richard Conti, MD, past president of the American College of Cardiology and former Editor of Clinical Cardiology, was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the new journal and has published its first issue to coincide with the 26th GW-ICC meeting in Oct. 2015 in Beijing, China.
Canadian entomologists have reported the first appearance of Aedes japonicus -- an invasive, disease-carrying mosquito -- in western Canada. Members of the species were found in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Researchers from the University of Southampton have established that eggs have a protective 'checkpoint' that helps to prevent DNA damaged eggs being fertilised.
Damage to an egg's DNA can result in infertility, birth defects and miscarriages. This damage can occur as a result of the natural ageing process and also as a result of women taking certain types of medication following chemotherapy, or radiotherapy.
New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that male and female mice respond differently to inflammation at the cellular level. Specifically, in male mice the spleen acts as a source of white blood cells, while in females this is not the case. This discovery suggests that human studies are necessary to determine if current medical practices, which treat men and women generally the same, should be altered to reflect sex-specific differences.
Frank Lyko, scientist at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg has a keen interest in epigenetics. Unlike genetics where a fault in the genetic makeup will cause a gene to deliver the wrong product, occur multiple times or be missing completely, epigenetics is concerned with tiny changes in the genetic material which cause a gene to be more or less active. This is crucial for organisms to adapt to new environmental conditions such as diet, population density or temperature.
Scientists at the University of Birmingham have discovered that there is a sharp reduction in visibility caused by fireworks and bonfires on Guy Fawkes' night. They found that visibility was further decreased when the relative humidity was high.
Have you ever used Airbnb or other peer-to-peer accommodation services when travelling? If yes, you are likely to travel more than you used to, you choose your destination from among a wider set of alternatives, and you are more active in your destination.
Fragments of cancer DNA circulating in a patient's bloodstream could help doctors deliver more personalized treatment for liver cancer, Japanese researchers report.
The new research may help address a particular challenge posed by liver cancers, which can be difficult to analyze safely. One serious risk of existing biopsy methods is that doctors who want to obtain a tumor sample for analysis might cause the cancer to spread into the space around organs.
A research team led by Associate Professor Ishii Roaki and Doctoral Student Azuma Wakana from the Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultural Science has discovered that the water storage tissue that they recently found in the world's tallest tree, Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood), is also found in Japan's tallest trees, Cryptomeria japonica (Japanese cedar). The results of this research were published on 4 September 2015 in the online version of the journal Trees.
A former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing a solution to the current gridlock over the regulation of dietary supplements: Focus less on whether these vitamins, minerals and herbal extracts actually do what they claim and instead take important steps to improve their safety.
Public health policies targeted at smokers may actually have the opposite effect for some people trying to quit, according to new evidence released today (Nov. 2).
Research indicates that stigmatizing smoking can, in some cases, make it harder for people to quit because they become angry and defensive and the negative messages lead to a drop in self-esteem.
The findings, published in Social Science & Medicine, highlight the potential for negative stereotypes to backfire, especially when it comes to public health campaigns.
A volunteer registration of insects for 18 consecutive years on the Copenhagen roof of the Natural History Museum of Denmark has revealed local insect community turnover due to climate change. The research suggests a pattern of specialised species being more sensitive to climate change.