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Researchers have identified mutations in a gene called CARD11 that lead to atopic dermatitis, or eczema, an allergic skin disease. Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions discovered the mutations in four unrelated families with severe atopic dermatitis and studied the resulting cell-signaling defects that contribute to allergic disease. Their findings, reported in Nature Genetics, also suggest that some of these defects potentially could be corrected by supplementation with the amino acid glutamine.

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have made the first direct demonstration that fecal donor microbes remained in recipients for months or years after a transplant to treat the diarrhea and colitis caused by recurrent Clostridium difficile infections -- a serious and stubborn cause of diarrhea after an antibiotic treatment for some other illness.

Most business and leisure travelers in the United States can't identify a bed bug, and yet the tiny pest evokes a stronger response in hotel guests than any other potential room deficiency--putting the hospitality industry in a difficult spot. In a survey of U.S. travelers conducted by researchers at the University of Kentucky, 60 percent said they would switch hotels if they found evidence of bed bugs in a guest room. Meanwhile, no more than a quarter said they would switch hotels for factors such as signs of smoking or dirty towels or linens. In the same survey, however, just 35 percent of business travelers and 28 percent of leisure travelers correctly identified a bed bug in a lineup of other common insects. The results of the research are soon to be published in American Entomologist, the quarterly magazine of the Entomological Society of America.