People who do well on a series of decision-making tasks involving hypothetical situations tend to have more positive decision outcomes in their lives, according to a study by decision scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the RAND Corp.

The results suggest that it may be possible to improve the quality of people’s lives by teaching them better decision-making skills.

Yes, there are gender differences in cognitive function, but they're more limited than previously thought. And yes, income does affect cognitive performance – but less than expected when only healthy children are considered. And while basic cognitive skills steadily improve in middle childhood, they then seem to level off – questioning the idea of a burst of brain development in adolescence.

These findings, published online on May 18 in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, are the first data to emerge from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) MRI Study of Normal Brain Development, a large, population-based study that began in 1999 and is documenting structural brain development and behavior from birth to young adulthood.

It confuses some people that I can be an environmentalist and a Republican. It's confusing because Democrats are handed a checklist of "coalition of the oppressed" platforms they have to believe in, so they don't understand picking and choosing positions based on logic and common sense.

Republicans don't much care if you are for ice-picking fetus skulls or paying high taxes, as long as you have an oil well in your backyard and all of your TV channels parent-blocked except Fox News.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii has a new way to look at the Universe, thanks to two revolutionary instruments called HARP and ACSIS. These instruments operate together, and they recently sliced through the Orion Nebula, recording for the first time the internal movements of its star-forming gases.

By applying the techniques of computer engineering to a mechanistic diagram describing the development of the Nematode C. elegans, a group of researchers in Switzerland has been able to tease out what laboratory experiments have not – how and when the crucial cross-talk between cellular signaling pathways takes place in order to determine the fates of individual cells.

Many school children in the United States memorize President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, considered one of history's most brilliant speeches and a model of brevity and persuasive rhetoric.

But according to two medical researchers at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, most historians have failed to recognize that when Lincoln delivered it on Nov. 19, 1863, he was in the early stages of a life-threatening illness — a serious form of smallpox. Their report appears in the current issue of Journal of Medical Biography, a scholarly quarterly published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press in London (www.rsmpress.co.uk/jmb.htm).

Tomatoes might be nutritious and tasty, but don’t count on them to prevent prostate cancer. In the May issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers based at the National Cancer Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report that lycopene, an antioxidant predominately found in tomatoes, does not effectively prevent prostate cancer. In fact, the researchers noted an association between beta-carotene, an antioxidant related to lycopene, and an increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer.

One of the world’s largest and least studied freshwater turtles has been found in Cambodia’s Mekong River, raising hopes that the threatened species can be saved from extinction.

Scientists from Conservation International (CI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, and the Cambodian Turtle Conservation Team captured and released an 11-kilogram (24.2-pound) female Cantor’s giant softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii) during a survey in March.

Despite the fact that they both infect the liver, the hepatitis A and hepatitis C viruses actually have very little in common. The two are far apart genetically, are transmitted differently, and produce very different diseases.

Hepatitis A spreads through the consumption of fecal particles from an infected person (in pollution-contaminated food or water, for example), but hepatitis C is generally transmitted only by direct contact with infected blood.

Forecasters will test a new technique this summer that provides a detailed 3-D view of an approaching hurricane every six minutes and allows them to determine whether the storm is gathering strength as it nears land. The technique, developed by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), relies on the existing network of Doppler radars along the Southeast coast to closely monitor hurricane winds.