For the study, researchers looked at weather patterns in 2007, whencovering the Arctic Ocean hit one of its lowest summer extents since satellite tracking began in the late 1970s.

In fall and winter, when sea ice would normally insulate the ocean from frigid Arctic air temperatures, the small ice pack meant lots of heat could escape from the ocean into the atmosphere, the study found. The heating changed , said lead study author Elizabeth Cassano, a climate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colo. The results were published May 21 in the International Journal of Climatology.

"What we saw, particularly in the fall and winter, was a decrease in [atmospheric] pressure over the areas of open water," Cassano told LiveScience. Areas of high and low pressure drive weather, with low pressure producing stormier weather and high pressure leading to clear, calm days, Cassano said. The group's computer model generally agreed with weather records from the latter half of 2007, according to the study.

While thehad a significant effect into the winter, there was little change in weather patterns in early 2007, before the ice pack shrank, the study found. However, Cassano points out that the climate model doesn't include a major high-pressure system that was in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and played a role in the big ice melt. Its absence could affect the modeling results.

The researchers now plan to examine how the feedback between sea ice and the atmosphere alters weather in the United State and other regions, Cassano said. "There's an open question of how these changes that we see in the Arctic influence the weather that we see here in the mid-latitudes," she said.

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(Reuters) - GameStop Corp raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday after beating fourth-quarter estimates, counting on a boost from new gaming consoles due later this year and further growth in digital and mobile sales.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

Quarterly profit of the world's largest video games retailer fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

The company, which said its year-to-date market share of PS3 and Xbox 360 software in the United States was 47.7 percent, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.87 billion. Mobile sales rose 290 percent to $46.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting sales of $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly profit fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

For the second quarter, GameStop expects earnings of 1 cent per share to 7 cents per share. Analysts are expecting a profit of 8 cents per share.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Roshni Menon and Alden Bentley)

Bernando LaPallo chatted with Yankees star Derek Jeter before Saturday night's game against Boston. The Arizona resident playfully calls himself the Yankees' oldest fan.

But a consultant with Guinness World Records who specializes in validating the ages of older people said public records show LaPallo was born in 1910, not on Aug. 17, 1901.

"Many extreme age claims in the past have turned out to be false," researcher Robert Young told The Associated Press in an email Sunday.

Young also is the senior database administrator for the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps a list of verified age claims of supercentenarians people who are at least 110.

Young said LaPallo would be the second-oldest man in the world if his claim was true. A man in Japan is 116.

LaPallo told the AP on Sunday that many people doubt him because he's in such good condition.

"It is hard to believe," he said by telephone. "And because I can pass for 65 or 70, people say it's impossible."

LaPallo's granddaughter said his birthdate was incorrectly written down as 1910 instead of 1901 at a Social Security office in Florida during the mid-1930s. Ekayani Chamberlin, who runs a fitness Web site with her grandfather and promotes his lectures on aging, says the family doesn't have an official record of his birth in Brazil.

Chamberlin said the place where LaPallo was born was leveled long ago and that historians were welcome "to try to dig through the records."

"I don't have any doubt about his age, no," she said. "My grandfather has never lied to us."

Chamberlin said Young and at least one other researcher had previously been in contact with her family, trying to verify LaPallo's age.

"At the end of the day, whether he's 112 or 102, I'll guess he's in a lot better health than Mr. Young," she said.

LaPallo attracted quite a crowd while the Yankees took batting practice before playing the Red Sox. He stood without assistance and showed nary a wrinkle, recalling how met Babe Ruth before the slugger was a major leaguer.

LaPallo said he first saw the Yankees in person when they were called the Highlanders and played at Hilltop Park, their home until 1912.

The Yankees congratulated LaPallo on the scoreboard during Saturday's game and he got a big cheer from the crowd.

In the late 1950s, the Palm Beach socialite had time to spare and a wealthy husband who owned citrus groves, so she opened an orange juice stand just off the island's main shopping street. Pulitzer needed to hide all the juice stains on her clothes, though. Instead of just putting on an apron, she asked her seamstress to make some sleeveless dresses in colorful fruit prints, and a fashion staple was born.

Pulitzer died at her home Sunday, according to Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services. She was 81.

Pulitzer's tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s when then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread.

The colorful revolution came as fashion shed its reliance on neutrals, and Pulitzer's stuff was almost the housewife version of the more youthful mod look that was migrating from London.

To this day, the Lilly Pulitzer dress remains a popular, if not a necessary, addition to any woman's closet.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, told The Associated Press in March 2009.

Pulitzer's dresses hung behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. A boutique featuring the company's dresses developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor soon replaced the juice stand.

"Today we celebrate all that Lilly meant to us and come together as Lilly lovers to honor a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world," James B. Bradbeer Jr. and Scott A. Beaumont, who bought the Lilly Pulitzer brand in 1992, said in a statement.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange the colors of a Florida vacation.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004.

"We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style," she said.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

But changing taste brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc.; Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business but continued reviewing new prints from Florida.

"When Lilly started the business back in the '60s, she targeted a young customer because she was young," Bradbeer told the AP in 2003. "What we have done is target the daughter and granddaughter of that original customer."

Pulitzer herself retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although she remained a consultant and a muse for the brand.

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010. Sales of the Lilly Pulitzer brand were strong in the earnings period that ended Feb. 2. The brand's revenue increased 26 percent to $29.1 million, according to Oxford Industries' earnings report. The company said last week it planned to add four to six new stores each year for its Lilly Pulitzer brand.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize.

Pulitzer had three children in quick succession. After the third was born, she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital that catered to upscale clientele in New York. A doctor there told her that she needed to find a job.

"The doctor there said, 'You're not happy because you're not doing anything,' and I said, 'I don't know how to do anything.' I'd always had everything done for me, always had my nanny and my mummy making up my mind. The doctor said, 'You've got to go out and find something to do,'" Pulitzer told The New Yorker in 2000.

Pulitzer gave the same prescription to her friends. If one of them needed something to do, Pulitzer would open a store in her town.

The Pulitzers divorced in 1969. Pulitzer's second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

"I don't know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day," she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. "I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There's no explaining the fun I had."

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - When Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt celebrated his 45th birthday, his finance minister gave him a framed graph showing the tax burden falling to 45 percent of GDP for the first time in decades. It still hangs in his office.

The gift reflected the celebratory mood of a centre-right government boosting economic growth while reducing taxes and cutting unemployment and sickness benefits, shrinking a welfare state that is among the most generous in the world.

Three years later, engulfed in the worst riots in decades, that optimism is questioned. The torching of cars and battles with masked youths from poor immigrant suburbs has exposed another side of Sweden's welfare reform.

Still, given globalization and the need to be competitive, the fact that people live longer and that state finances need to be kept sound, Sweden and other Nordic states face more reforms, a lite version of austerity forced on many European nations.

"We are far more aware that Sweden is part of a competitive environment," said Minister for Social Security Ulf Kristersson.

Sweden is eyeing more cuts to pensions and sickness benefits, but it is not alone in the region. Denmark too is cutting benefits. Finland is under pressure to raise the pension age. Even oil rich Norway has concerns it is becoming uncompetitive.

But Sweden faces political headwinds before a 2014 election. Cuts have pushed the Danish government to historic poll lows. In Norway, reforms are on a back burner.

THE NEW SWEDISH MARKET MODEL

For a glimpse of a market-oriented culture that increasingly permeates Sweden's state, look no further than St. Goran's hospital, Stockholm's only privately run emergency hospital.

From the offices of chief executive Britta Wallgren, it can be difficult to know she is talking about running a hospital. A video compares emergency checkups with Formula 1 pit stops and her conversation is littered with words like "lean" and "flows".

Stockholm council pays St Goran's, privatized in 1999 and owned by private health provider Capio, on a formula based on the number of patients and treatments.

The contract has been renewed this year. Costs are around 8 percent lower than other Stockholm hospitals. But they lead other hospitals in many indicators, including reducing hospital infections and waiting times.

"We believe the drive for efficiency also means a drive for quality," said Wallgren. She pointed out how simple changes in treatment - making sure teams included specialists as well as nurses - cut costs and reduced waiting times.

She is proud of one reform in particular - placing yellow stickers on floors to locate defibrillator saved some 40 hours a week of wasted time searching for them.

The Nordics enjoy some of the world's most generous welfare. Sweden has subsidized, universal child care with up to 480 days of parental leave per child. It spends 12 percent of GDP on family, housing, sickness and labor market policies, compared with an OECD average of under 9 percent. Denmark is at 14 percent.

Reforms have helped economic growth outstrip most of Europe and accelerated entry of private companies into the public sector. Private firms run a fifth of hospital services and many publicly-funded schools. Stockholm has ostentatious wealth - Michelin star restaurants, top end fashion - rare decades ago.

But Sweden also has the fastest growing inequality of any OECD nation - so much so that last year one group offered "class war safaris" so Swedes could see how the other half lives.

"The extent of the cuts would surprise many people outside Sweden," said Ola Pettersson, economist at the LO trade union federation. "We can see the early signs of a backlash."

The market model has also been overshadowed by scandal, including reports workers at homes for the elderly run by one private equity firm were told to weigh adult diapers and not to change them until they were full in order to keep costs down.

Recently, hundreds of nurse also protested over poor resources for maternity wards.

Reinfeldt's government has been forced by popular anger to close tax loopholes used by private equity companies, some of them active in running health services. Some centre-left opposition parties want to ban profits being made by companies in tax-payer funded sectors.

In immigrant suburbs where May's riots exploded, benefits cuts have come, but not jobs. At the same time, a growing minority of Swedes complain about the cost of asylum seekers on welfare. Foreign-born unemployed rates, at 16 percent, compare with 6 percent for native Swedes.

"Conditions for receiving welfare are now much tougher, so it's very hard to get it, and even when you do the payments are meager," said Mia Paarni a local opposition politician in the IT hub of Kista, close to May's riots.

Poverty rates have risen in Sweden, being most pronounced among immigrants and single mothers.

In the university town of Uppsala, Charlotte Bjornstrom says she was paid sick leave for 10 years, with a host of ailments, before reforms introduced a two-year limit, forcing many to transfer to unemployment payments and look for a job.

"That was torture, especially the first time, because I was so ill then and I didn't know what it was," she said.

WELFARE SCANDALS

Denmark, nearly in recession, has been forced to make changes to its welfare system. Two highly publicised social benefits scandals accelerated the reform.

One involved "Poor Carina", a single mother of two picked for a television programme meant to expose hardship. But that backfired when it turned out she received around $2,700 a month - more than many full-time workers.

Later in the year, a man labelled "Lazy Robert" further fuelled the debate when he told his story of being on welfare since 2001 with no plans to take a lower-paid job.

While Denmark enjoys a triple-A credit rating, at least 18 percent of the population is over 65.

But reforms such as cutting unemployment benefits from four years to two years and reducing student grants and early retirement scheme have proved costly in political terms.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt's standing is under 20 percent in polls, a historic low.

"The crisis is not a small detour that can be solved through a fiscal fix or a quick cuts," she said in parliament on Wednesday. "We live in a new reality where all tools must be pulled out of the toolbox in our bid to change Denmark."

In Norway, worries have emerged that oil wealth and generous welfare means many can afford not to work and that competitiveness is suffering from rising wages.

Norwegians have even added a new word to their vocabulary - "to nave", or to get benefits from NAV, the labour and welfare agency. It was named word of the year for 2012 after it became popular shorthand among youngsters, as in: "I am going to nave' this year rather than work."

But while there have been efforts to rein in high sick leave levels, tax rates have remained elevated and the opposition Conservatives, likely to win September elections, see little impetus for major reforms.

"I don't think we'll make any major changes to our welfare benefits, such as sick leave, as long as the economy is faring well," said Conservative leader Erna Solberg.

That aspect of faring well is one which is key to future reforms in the Nordic countries.

While finances for now are better than elsewhere in Europe, long-term challenges remain to maintain traditions of a strong, protective state, said Stephanie Janet, head of the Denmark and Sweden desk at the OECD economics department.

"While they do not have the urgency of many European countries, reforms are something they need to do in order to ensure they can continue with their welfare model," she said.

(Additional reporting by Philip O'Connor in Stockholm, Mette Fraende in Copenhagen, Jussi Rosendahl in Helsinki, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Editing by Janet McBride)

[More from BGR: ]

All that said, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. As Kotaku notes, its not clear if users can get away with blocking or obscuring the Kinect sensor from watching them if they still want to play games. Whats more, Microsoft hasnt yet provided any details about what it will do with all the data that Kinect records of users behavior in their living rooms. Instead, the Microsoft spokesperson simply said that we know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data while adding that the company would fill in the blanks on privacy questions at a later date, most likely at the E3 gaming convention in June.

This article was

This marks the first companion diagnostic that detects epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutations to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency said. The diagnostic is called the Cobas EGFR Mutation Test.

"Companion diagnostics play an important role in determining which therapies are the safest and most effective for a particular patient," Alberto Gutierrez, of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement.

The approval will also move Tarceva up the treatment chain for those patients who test positive for the EGFR mutation. The drug was originally approved in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer only after they were not helped by at least one previous chemotherapy regimen.

"People with this type of lung cancer now have the option to use a personalized medicine as their initial treatment to help them live longer without their disease worsening," Hal Barron, chief medical officer of Roche Holding Ag's Genentech unit, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Carol Bishopric)

MIAMI (Reuters) - San Francisco is favored to be named the host city for the 50th Super Bowl when National Football League (NFL) owners vote Tuesday on the site of the 2016 championship game.

The Californian city, home to the NFL's 49ers, is up against South Florida (Miami) while Houston will compete with the losing bid for the 2017 game, which will also be decided on Tuesday.

All the focus, however, is on the prestige of hosting the 50th anniversary game, which the NFL is promising to make the biggest and best finale ever.

The San Francisco Bay Area has hosted one Super Bowl, in 1985, while the Miami area has enjoyed the economic boost from hosting the NFL's championship game a record-tying 10 times, most recently in 2010.

But that extra experience appears to be the only obvious advantage Miami has.

The NFL has said for several years that they wanted to see upgrades made to the 26-year-old Miami Gardens venue but a bid by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to get state funding for a major redevelopment failed and the billionaire has made it clear he will not fund the changes alone.

That setback has left the South Florida bid committee talking about a 'Plan B' with the existing stadium but they have been badly damaged by the dropping of the planned upgrade.

"Following the Miami Dolphins' failure to secure public funding for renovations ... San Francisco sits in the driver's seat," Albert Breer wrote on the NFL website on Monday.

While the South Florida bid is now left to focus on downtown events and beachside activities, San Francisco, in contrast, is proudly highlighting the state-of-the-art nature of their $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara set to open next year.

The San Francisco bid, which was presented to the NFL's 32 owners on shiny, new iPads, and which has been backed by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, such as Apple and Google, promises an unmatched venue.

As well as ultra-luxury suits, Levi's Stadium will feature stadium-wide wifi, streaming video, mobile connectivity, in-seat tablet holders and huge HD video boards measuring over 13,000 square feet.

"I think we will win on our own right," Steve Van Dorn, chief executive of the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce, told the Silicon Valley Mercury News, "I'm feeling very good about it."

If that confidence proves well-placed, Miami would be left to fight Houston for the 2017 game with the Texas city viewed as favorite in that contest.

Houston's indoor Reliant Stadium hosted the Super Bowl in 2004 and is considered superior to Miami's ageing arena and the setback in getting Florida funds for the stadium was seen as a major boost for Houston.

"Certainly what happened doesn't help Miami's bid. There's no doubt about that," Houston Texans owner Bob McNair said. "But that doesn't say that the owners couldn't decide to still go to Miami."

South Florida will hope that being better provided for the week-long build up of events and parties could yet swing a big game their way.

"We're extremely optimistic that our bid is going to set a new level and they're going to have a tough decision to make," Miami bid chairman Rodney Barreto said recently.

"We've put some new things on the table that are really exciting and are exciting for the South Florida area."

Next year's Super Bowl will be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at the shared home of the New York Giants and New York Jets while the 2015 game will be played in Glendale, Arizona, at the home of the Arizona Cardinals.

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX on Wednesday agreed to pay $10 million, the largest penalty ever levied against a stock exchange, to settle civil charges stemming from mistakes made during Facebook's initial public offering last year, U.S. securities regulators said on Wednesday.

In its administrative proceeding against the stock exchange operator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Nasdaq's "ill-fated decisions" on the day of the IPO led to a series of regulatory violations.

The SEC said Nasdaq's senior executives were aware of technical problems but decided to open up Facebook stock for secondary trading without first getting to the root cause of the troubles.

After trading had opened to the wider marketplace, the problems persisted. The exchange's chief economist spotted discrepancies in trading volume, and complaints from market makers started to mount. Still, exchange management decided not to halt trading, the SEC said.

As a result of those poor decisions, more than 30,000 Facebook orders remained stuck in Nasdaq's system for more than two hours when they should have been either executed or canceled. Investors were left in the lurch and market makers lost an estimated $500 million.

"This action against Nasdaq tells the tale of how poorly designed systems and hasty decision-making not only disrupted one of the largest IPOs in history, but produced serious and pervasive violations of fundamental rules governing our markets," said George Canellos, co-director of the SEC's enforcement division.

The exchange operator agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations.

Separately, the exchange has agreed to pay as much as $62 million to compensate market makers for losses, an agreement approved by the SEC earlier this year.

Wednesday's settlement marks a major step for Nasdaq as it seeks to put the fallout from the Facebook debacle behind it. The exchange is still facing lingering battles with market markers who lost money in the May 18, 2012, IPO.

UBS, which lost $300 million - by far the most of any market player - is in arbitration with Nasdaq in an effort to recoup more money. A representative of UBS declined to comment on the status of the arbitration.

The SEC's case is the latest in a continuing crackdown on stock exchanges. Regulators are using enforcement as a tool to get exchanges to beef up their compliance with regulations and make sure they are properly self-policing.

Last year, the New York Stock Exchange became the first exchange in SEC history to face a financial penalty after it was accused of giving certain customers an "improper head start" on trading information.

In 2011 the SEC sanctioned Direct Edge for weak controls, and earlier this month the Chicago Board Options Exchange said it expects to be fined as much as $10 million to resolve an SEC probe into its duties as a self-policing organization.

In an open letter issued on Wednesday, Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld said the challenges that the exchange faced when the Facebook stock debuted were unprecedented.

"In the last year, we have carefully reviewed these events," Greifeld wrote. "As market leaders, we view our experiences as opportunities to learn and improve."

Facebook's IPO, the largest ever in terms of volume, was a much anticipated event. But the hype soon turned into panic after a software error at Nasdaq led to a 30-minute delay in the IPO.

The SEC said Nasdaq's senior management thought they had fixed the systems problem after removing a few lines of computer code and decided not to delay the start of secondary market trading.

But the technical problems persisted, with many brokers waiting for more than two hours to hear about the status of their orders.

In addition to charges stemming from poor decision-making, the SEC also said it was charging Nasdaq with a series of technical rule violations.

Nasdaq assumed a short position of more than 3 million shares of Facebook in an unauthorized account and covered that short position for a $10.8 million profit, two violations of exchange rules, the SEC said.

The agency also said it had found other problems unrelated to Facebook involving additional technology glitches. In those cases, in October 2011 and August 2012, the glitches led the exchange to violate rules that require investors to get the best bids and prices, the SEC said.

The settlement requires the exchange to make certain technical fixes related to its matching system for buy and sell orders for IPOs.

It also must expand the scope of its regulatory group's coverage of the rules governing its trading platforms and get the group more involved in decisions about software changes.

In his open letter, Greifeld said Nasdaq has already put new safeguards in place.

He said many of the SEC's demands have already been met, but he expects all of the requirements to be completed by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by John McCrank in New York; Editing by Kenneth Barry and John Wallace)

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health identified the itch molecule in mice and found that by using drugs to block the molecule, the mice didn't scratch when presented with itchy stimuli -- a skin irritant and a malaria drug known to cause itchiness.

"It's such a common problem and can be really devastating for quite a number of patients," said Dr. Jennifer Stein, a dermatology professor at NYU Langone Medical Center. "There are so many different choices of pain medicine for people, but we really have very limited treatments for itch."

Although most people only associate itch with bug bites and allergies, it can also be caused by other health problems such as thyroid disease and rare cases of lymphoma, Stein said.

Although antihistamine drugs are often used to stop itch, they don't work for all itches. And once a patient starts scratching, the itch often gets worse and turns into a cyclical problem.

The molecule is called natriuretic polypeptide b -- or Nppb and it works by "plugging" into a nerve cell in the spinal cord to send a message to the rest of the central nervous system that's later experienced in the brain as an itch. The research paper was published in the journal Science on Friday.

"When we exposed the Nppb-deficient mice to several itch-inducing substances, it was amazing to watch." said Santosh Mishra, lead author on the study. "Nothing happened. The mice wouldn't scratch."

Although this isn't the first itch research to be published, it seems to indicate a start switch to the complex series of events involved in creating the itch sensation.

Scientists had previously found another neurotransmitter responsible for itch called GRP. Mishra and her colleagues learned that still applies, but GRP enters the process after Nppb, according to an NIH press release.

Only more research will show whether Nppb has the same function in humans, said Xinzhong Dong, an itch expert and professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

"Basically, they laid out a good foundation," Dong said. "Any medical research is still a long way to go to really come up with a workable drug to block this peptide and mitigate itch transmission."