Body

The luxury goods market for the ultra rich encompasses jewelry, cars, clothes, tableware, ornaments and much more. If luxury hotels, travel and other services are included alongside retail sales, this sector amounted to $1 trillion dollars in 2015. As such, there is a vast grey market for goods that mimic the priciest brands but sell to people who are less well off. Ian Phau and Min Teah of Curtin Business School, at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, explain how, "brand familiarity is postulated to be a mediator between perception of luxury and product evaluation.

Boston, MA--A new study from Brigham and Women's Hospital utilized claims data from more than 630,000 patients living in the state of California and found no significant differences in post-operative complications or mortality between African American patients and White patients who were treated in a universally insured military health system.

(BOSTON) -- When in dysfunction, the vascular endothelium -- the tissue that lines the blood vessels throughout our body's entire circulatory system -- plays a big role in the development of many human diseases, including diabetes, stroke, heart disease, viral infections and cancer. This is because endothelial cells are sensitive to blood flow and also interact with blood cells through molecules on their surface, so that blood coagulation and platelet function are modulated. In normal 'hemostasis', the endothelium prevents deadly blood loss and clot formation.

People who ate a diet high in nuts and legumes, low-fat dairy, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables and low in red and processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages and sodium were at a significantly lower risk of developing chronic kidney disease over the course of more than two decades, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

The White House wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 percent by 2050, but the goal raises questions about one of the greatest sources of those pollutants, light-duty vehicles (LDVs). The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has taken a close look at what specific combination of measures national experts have determined is needed to slash LDV emissions from 1,514 million metric tons (MMTs) to 303 MMTs of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year and meet this larger emissions-reduction goal.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - As a childhood obesity expert and black woman, Susan Woolford, M.D., MPH, knows that some girls and women in the black community feel as if they have to choose between their health and their hair.

Gym class, school sports and other exercise routines bring important health benefits. But sweating also means potentially bad hair days and ruining time-consuming and costly hairstyles.

The prevalence of preterm birth - the birth of an infant prior to 37 weeks of pregnancy - is a significant health problem that has increased over the past two decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), preterm birth affects nearly 500,000 babies each year, or one of every eight born in the U.S. While medical care has improved survival rates for preterm infants, questions remain about ways to positively impact the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants.

HOUSTON - (Aug. 9, 2016) - Breast cancer tumors are complex and dynamic. They comprise a population of continuously dividing cells that carry different genetic mutations.

Genome-wide association studies, which try to find correlations between particular genetic variations and disease diagnoses, are a staple of modern medical research.

A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has reported that repeated treatment with pulsed electric fields - a noninvasive procedure that does not generate heat - may help reduce the development of scarring. In the Journal of Investigative Dermatology the investigators from the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) and collaborators describe how use of the technology - called partial irreversible electroporation - reduced scarring after burn injuries in an animal model and improved several skin properties by removal of excess skin cells.

WASHINGTON - U.S. adults perform comparably to adults in other economically developed countries on most measures of science knowledge and support science in general, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. However, attitudes toward some specific issues, such as climate change or genetic engineering, may be shaped by factors such as values and beliefs rather than knowledge of the science alone.

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum specimens of rare species of deer. Analysis of partial nucleotide sequences has enabled the team to refine our picture of the evolutionary history of cervids.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Proteins are long strings of amino acids jumbled together like earphones left inside of a pocket for too long. But while a protein's mess of intertwined knots may look haphazard, their specific folds are extremely important to their biological functions. Misfolded proteins are thought to be the genesis of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and cystic fibrosis, just to name a few.

Normally, individual molecules of genetic material repel each other. However, when space is limited DNA molecules must be packed together more tightly. This case arises in sperm, cell nuclei and the protein shells of viruses. An international team of physicists has now succeeded in artificially recreating this so-called DNA condensation on a biochip.

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 9, 2016 -- The Gulf of Maine coastline, historically home to one of the richest shellfish populations in the U.S., is undergoing a dramatic change, with once-flourishing wild blue mussels all but disappearing, according to a study led by University of California, Irvine ecologists.