I'm ignoring important items and getting more backed up so I can bring you this Boston Globe $hit:
"Conference tackles mystery of why we itch" by Liz Kowalczyk | Globe Staff, September 23, 2013
The seventh World Congress on Itch — a conference designed to increase collaboration among scientists across specialties and countries to unravel the mystery of why people itch.
Just scratch it already!
Dr. Ethan Lerner, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who organized the conference, said, “Sometimes patients can become suicidal because the itching is so bad.’’
Itch is a component of many medical conditions, including renal failure, liver disease, and some cancers like Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Lerner said includes “itching all over the body and no one knows why. There is no rash.’’ More than 31 million Americans suffer from the itchy skin condition eczema. And wounds and burns often itch uncontrollably as they heal.
At least the skin cream industry makes a profit. I think it is all the chemicals in the air, land, water, and modern products that cause itching, but that's me.
In his remarks Sunday, Dr. Stephen Katz, director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, urged researchers to apply for federal grants to study the underlying causes of itch, even in these lean times for research funding.
“This is a high priority for us,’’ he said in an interview. “Itch is such a central issue in so many diseases.’’
Katz said he hopes the conference, which ends Monday, will further stimulate scientific interest and much-needed progress in the field....
Society has often made fun of itch; there’s the famous camp prank involving itching powder in the bunk. But companies are spotting opportunities; among those attending the congress were representatives from such businesses as Unilever, the maker of Dove and other soaps.
It really is a whoreporate pre$$ when you scratch off the scab.
Serious scientific journals like Cell and Nature are publishing papers on itching. And attendance at this year’s conference in Boston drew 100 more participants than the sixth Congress on Itch two years ago in France, Lerner said.
“One of the things we need to do in the field of itch is think outside the box,’’ Lerner told scientists Sunday.
Now you are talking feminine itch.
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The Globe is literally getting under my skin these days.
I know where they can get the funding for their research:
"A new era: seeking stock investors online; Some see profit, some see problems as federal law to boost start-ups takes effect" by Jenna Wortham | New York Times, September 23, 2013
NEW YORK — Entrepreneurs looking to the crowd to finance their big ideas just got a little extra help from the government.
Yes, we have $uch a good government here!
On Monday, federal legislation goes into effect to allow “emerging growth” companies — essentially, small start-ups — to ask for equity investments publicly, such as through social-media sites or elsewhere on the Internet, without having to register the shares for public trading. Business owners can raise up to $1 million a year this way.
Maybe it i$ a good thing; however, don't we have enough $cams out there?
The legislation is part of the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, meant to encourage the growth of new businesses. Entrepreneurs say it will address a central problem they face: Raising significant capital often depends on having personal connections to investors....
Even a JOBS Act is written of, by, and for CAPITAL!
The JOBS Act has stirred up criticism for its revisions to other laws, including changes that allow hedge funds to advertise to the general public for the first time.
In addition, Twitter’s paradoxical post this month that it had filed secretive plans to go public was possible under the JOBS Act because the law deems Twitter, which has hundreds of employees and 200 million users, small enough to file for an IPO without disclosing details about the business.
Related:
In tweet, Twitter says it will make IPO
Twitter learns from Facebook’s IPO follies
Facebook's IPO Flops
Time Is Running Out
You better start tweeting.
The original laws regulating how equity investments are raised date to the 1930s and were put in place to “prevent the snake oil salesman from bankrupting the trusting and unassuming grandma,” said Ajay K. Agrawal, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto.
Now the snake oil salesman is the banker, and we are having a replay of Glass-Steagal?
With the new measures, he said, it will be a tough challenge to make sure any boomlet of crowdfunding ventures does not result in fraud and ordinary people being cheated....
What is it about AmeriKan capitalism, the greatest economic $y$tem ever known to man, that it has to always be on guard for criminality and money-addicted greed-heads?
This is GOVERNMENT helping?
Related: Massachusetts Secretary of State Galvinizes Lobbyists
At least he tried.
The new law does include safeguards....
Oh, government made $ure you are $afe. $illy me.
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Related:
"Scientists calling on the crowd for funding; Public appeals bring cash, gratification" by Carolyn Y. Johnson | Globe Staff, September 03, 2013
Facing a stark federal budget to support scientific research, Hiller and other scientists have begun experimenting with crowdfunding their research.
If it is for fart-misting guilt trips that are lies I don't want to hear it.
It is scientific funding for the social media age, with pitches made in brief videos, funders often kept updated on results through blogs, and the normally secretive “peer review” process used to vet proposals taking place in public as funders decide whether to contribute.
The results so far? Scientists who were used to turning to government agencies to fund their work are learning that friends, family, and strangers are willing to chip in small and large sums. They are finding that a wide range of projects can win support....
There is a $ucker born every minute.
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I've rubbed myself raw with the Boston Globe.
