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In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Harvard say they have provided the first laboratory evidence that cooperative behavior is contagious.  Researchers showed that when one person gave money to help others in a "public-goods game," where people had the opportunity to cooperate with each other, the recipients were more likely to give their own money away to other people in future games. This created a domino effect in which one person's generosity spread first to three people and then to the nine people that those three people interact with in the future, and then to still other individuals in subsequent waves of the experiment.

Preliminary measurements indicate that the massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck the west coast of Chile in February moved the entire city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west, and shifted other parts of South America as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil.Geophysicists say the data paint a much clearer picture of the power behind the massive earthquake, believed to be the fifth-most-powerful since instruments have been available to measure seismic shifts.

Historians from the University of Haifa claim that Khirbet Qeiyafa, a provincial town in Israel's Elah Valley region, is 'Neta'im',  an adminstrative center mentioned in the biblical book of Chronicles. Archaeological excavations carried out at Khirbet Qeiyafa have dated the site to the beginning of the 10th century BCE, namely the time of King David's rule. A Hebrew inscription on a pottery shard found at the site also dating back to the 10th century indicates the presence of scribes and a high level of culture in the town.

The more heterogeneous the community of an online chat channel, the more chances the channel has to survive over time, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Haifa and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Previous research focused on group size and activity suggested that there are too many variables influencing the lifespan of such channels and there is, therefore no way of testing how long they will survive.

Insulin resistance, high cholesterol, fatty liver, greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke are all related to obesity, but are likely not caused by it, according to a review in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.In fact, obesity is the body's way of storing lipids where they belong, in fat tissue, in an effort to protect our other organs from lipids' toxic effects. It's when the surplus of calories coming in gets to be too much for our fat tissue to handle that those lipids wind up in other places they shouldn't be, and the cascade of symptoms known as metabolic syndrome sets in.

 A team of researchers has discovered how to efficiently turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using visible light. The discovery opens the doors for scientists to explore what organism is out there – or could be created – to chemically break down the greenhouse gas into a useful form. The results are reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Alcohol consumption has been suspected of contributing to weight gain in the United States, but among normal-weight women moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a reduced risk for obesity, according a new study by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health.

A study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism reports that Vitamin D deficiency may be more common among young people today than most researchers thought. In the study, 59 per cent of participants had too little Vitamin D in their blood. Nearly a quarter of the group had serious deficiencies (less than 20 ng/ml) of this important vitamin. Since Vitamin D insufficiency is linked to increased body fat, decreased muscle strength and a range of disorders, this is a serious health issue

Researchers writing in Nature say they have developed a new strategy to identify and characterize genes involved in endocytosis - the process cells use to ingest substances from the external environment. From their findings the scientists say they may be able to develop treatments for serious disease like cancer, Huntington’s and diabetes.Cells take up material from the outside by pinching off from their cell membrane vesicles that transport substances to different cellular organelles. Depending on what they contain, these vesicles and organelles – also known as endosomes – are transported to different locations within the cell, where their content is either re-distributed or broken down to recycle the basic building blocks.

When it comes to wine, 'green' labels just don't pack the same financial wallop that they do for low-energy appliances and organically grown produce. A new study has found that organic labels actually decrease the price consumers are willing to pay for their wine.Wines made with 'organically' grown grapes rate higher on a widely accepted ranking, said Magali Delmas, a UCLA environmental economist and the study's lead author, and these wines can even command a higher price than their conventionally produced counterparts - as long as wineries don't use the word "organic" on their labels.When wineries do use eco-labels, prices plummet.

According to a new study of 504 death penalty cases in Harris County, Texas between 1992 and 1999, a defendant is much more likely to be sentenced to death if he or she kills a "high-status" victim - a white or Hispanic victim who is married with a clean criminal record and a college degree. The study appears in a recent issue of Law and Society Review"The concept of arbitrariness suggests that the relevant legal facts of a capital case cannot fully explain the outcome: irrelevant social facts also shape the ultimate state sanction" says Scott Phillips, associate professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver (DU). "In the capital of capital punishment, death is more apt to be sought and imposed on behalf of high status victims."

 A new study by researchers at the University of Rochester may very well revolutionize the concept of parenting. The study of 226 children from kindergarten up to third grade found that those taught skills to monitor and control their anger and other emotions improved their classroom behavior and had significantly fewer school disciplinary referrals and suspensions. The results have to be replicated by independent researchers, but it appears that children may behave better when they have positive influences in their lives. The study appears in the  Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology