News Articles

Scientists writing in Cognition have said that our ability to recognize and remember faces peaks at ages 30 to 34 - a decade later than most of our other mental abilities.Some prior studies had suggested that face recognition might be slow to mature but fewer suspected that facial recognition might continue building for so many years into adulthood. The late-blooming nature of face recognition may simply be a case of practice making perfect.

If you were around in the early days of the iPhone, you may have thought users were in love with it.   Proponents spoke of it in romantic terms and looked for reasons to discuss it, with questions like, "So what kind of phone do you have?"It turns out they may have been and a similar effect occurs in people passionate about things like cars and guns - it looks like love, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.   "Is it possible for consumers to be in love with their possessions?" ask authors John L. Lastovicka (Arizona State University) and Nancy J. Sirianni (Texas Christian University). When it comes to technology, cars, bicycles, and firearms, the answer seems to be a big yes.

A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl that was neither an early modern human nor Neanderthal, but instead belonged to a previously unknown group of human relatives who may have lived throughout much of Asia during the late Pleistocene epoch, according to new research (Reich, D. et al. Nature 468, 1053-1060 2010.

Game development company Fantastec has created an online 3D game called PolarHeroes for children aged 4 to 8.

Humans have greater susceptibility than other primates to certain infectious diseases which could be explained by species-specific changes in immune signaling pathways, a University of Chicago study finds.The first genome-wide, functional comparison of genes regulated by the innate immune system in three primate species discovers potential mediators of differences in disease susceptibility among primates. 

Mountains are the epitome of durability but some new data shows how ancient precipitation was really the driving force behind the mountains of the Farallon Plate between 65 and 28 million years ago.50 million years ago, mountains began rising in southern British Columbia and over the next 22 million years,  mountains began rising down western North America as far south as Mexico and as far east as Nebraska, says the new research.  

The economic reasoning underlying network neutrality regulationadopted this week by the Federal Communications Commission is fundamentally flawed, according to Professors J. Gregory Sidak and David J. Teece in an article published in the Journal of Competition Law&Economics.
Sidak and Teece explain that the FCC's proposed regulations would have the effect of banning or restricting optional business-to-business transactions between broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers for enhanced delivery of packets over the Internet.

As we noted a few times this month, a lunar eclipse is happening soon and while lunar eclipses occur twice a year, this is the first time on the Winter Solstice since 1554 A.D.    The second most popular question we get about lunar eclipses (First being "Is it safe to look at?  Answer: "Yes") involves the reddish color - people want to know why the moon looks red during a lunar eclipse.First, the basics: A lunar eclipse happens when the moon, Earth, and the sun all line up with Earth in the middle.     It is an eclipse because Earth's shadow is cast onto the full moon which dims its surface. 

Skin cancer is the most common form of malignancy in the United States and the American Cancer Society has estimated that 1 million new cases of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer were diagnosed in 2009, while 8,650 deaths were attributable to melanoma skin cancer.Studies have supported a positive association between increased use of indoor tanning and both melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers but the indoor tanning industry is still growing rapidly, with more than $5 billion in annual revenues and more than 30 million patrons - mostly women.Despite the data, few tanners, male or female, mention avoiding tanning beds when asked about ways to reduce skin cancer risk.

Researchers say they have identified a natural substance in dairy fat that may substantially reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. The compound, trans-palmitoleic acid, is a fatty acid found in milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and meat but is not produced by the body and so only comes from the diet.The report explains that trans-palmitoleic acid may underlie epidemiological evidence in recent years that diets rich in dairy foods are linked to lower risk of type 2 diabetes and related metabolic abnormalities.   Health experts generally advise reducing full-fat dairy products but the trans-palmitoleic acid discovery means once again it's better to avoid fad exclusions and diets and simply have a balanced diet in moderation.

580 million years ago, life on Earth began a rapid period of change called the Cambrian Explosion, defined by the birth of new life forms over many millions of years that ultimately helped bring about the modern diversity of animals.While fossils can help palaeontologists chronicle the evolution of life since the Cambrian Explosion, drawing a picture of life during the 3 billion years before the Cambrian Period is challenging because the soft-bodied Precambrian cells rarely left fossil imprints; early life forms did leave behind one abundant microscopic fossil, DNA. 

Scientists have studied human brain samples to isolate a set of proteins that accounts for over 130 brain diseases and found an intriguing link between such diseases,  the leading cause of medical disability in the developed world, according to the World Health Organization, with an economic costs in the USA exceeds $300 billion, and the evolution of the human brain.