Harmless gossip with a girlfriend can do wonders for a woman's mood and a University of Michigan study says they have an answer why: feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress.

A sex hormone that fluctuates with the menstrual cycle, progesterone is also present in low levels in post-menopausal women and in men. Earlier research has shown that higher levels of progesterone increase the desire to bond with others, but the current study is the first to show that bonding with others increases levels of progesterone. The study also links these increases to a greater willingness to help other people, even at our own expense.

When women  apply for faculty positions in math, science, and engineering at major research universities, they are interviewed and hired at rates equal to or higher than those for men, says a new report from the National Research Council.   Women are still underrepresented among those considered for tenure, but those who are considered receive tenure at the same or higher rates than men.

That means the gender gap is closing without quotas and with a consistent expectation of excellence.

The congressionally mandated report examines how women at research-intensive universities fare compared with men at key transition points in their careers. Two national surveys were commissioned to help address the issue.

ELAD, the Extracorporeal Liver Assist Device,  is a bedside system that treats blood plasma, metabolizing toxins and synthesizing proteins just like a real liver does.

Artificial livers have been attempted since the 1960s but because previous designs didn't use human liver cells, they couldn't adequately filter toxins or create chemicals essential to metabolism and blood-clotting.  ELAD is the first artificial organ for liver patients that uses immortalized human liver cells.

In cell biology, 'immortalization' is when a genetically engineered cell line can reproduce indefinitely.

Scientists here have determined that combining bed bugs' own chemical signals with a common insect control agent makes that treatment more effective at killing the bugs.  The researchers found that stirring up the bed bugs by spraying their environment with synthetic versions of their alarm pheromones makes them more likely to walk through agents called desiccant dusts, which kill the bugs by making them highly susceptible to dehydration.

A blend of two pheromones applied in concert with a silica gel desiccant dust proved to be the most lethal combination.

In these days of jaw-dropping trillion-dollar budgets and deficits along with current retirement obligations 7X the size of our economy, $6.3 billion may not sound like much.  But, hey, a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.  

$6.3 billion what the United States potentially could save on each group of adolescents who enter foster care every year - and get better results.

Mercury, closest planet to the sun, is as hot as you would expect, with daytime temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit/450 degrees Celsius and because of its small size, its gravity is weak, only about 38 percent of Earth's.

These conditions make it hard for the planet to hold on to its extremely thin atmosphere, which can can only be seen by special instruments attached to telescopes and spacecraft like MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging).  Even then it's not easy because Mercury's magnetic field gets in the way. MESSENGER's first flyby on January 14, 2008, confirmed that the planet has a global magnetic field, as first discovered by the Mariner 10 spacecraft during its flybys of the planet in 1974 and 1975.