Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Feces-smeared fakes: Scientists use rubber hands in OCD therapy

A new type of therapy using feces and fake rubber hands may be able to help patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) overcome their fears of touching contaminated surfaces, according to new research. "OCD can be an extremely debilitating condition for many people, but the treatments are not always straightforward," said Baland Jalal, a Cambridge University neuroscientist who was part of a team assessing if rubber hands could be a potential new type of exposure therapy. Blackstone raises three-quarters of targeted $4.6 billion life sciences fund

U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group Inc has secured $3.4 billion from investors for its first fund dedicated to investments in the life sciences sector, targeting $4.6 billion in total, a regulatory filing showed on Thursday. At its target fundraising amount, the fund would be one of the biggest in the sector. The raise underscores investors' strong appetite for the lucrative returns associated with the development of high-impact drugs, as well as their tolerance for risk, given that a therapy's success is far from certain.