News Articles

Children and young adults are more likely to pursue sports, music or other pastimes when given an opportunity to nurture their own passion, according to a three-part study Published in the latest Journal of Personality.As part of the study, the research team evaluated 588 musicians and athletes from swimmers to skiers. Participants were between six and 38 years old and practiced hobbies at different levels: beginner, intermediate and expert. Kids were recruited from high school or specialized summer camps, while adults were recruited at training camps and competitions. The scientific team used a Likert-type scale to measure how parents supported child autonomy and to evaluate child well-being regarding hobbies.

Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, an international team of scientists says invasive plants could become even more prevalent and destructive as climate change continues. According to the new analysis of data stretching back more than 150 years, non-native plants, and especially invasive species, appear to thrive during times of climate change because they're better able to adjust the timing of annual activities like flowering and fruiting.

Psychologists at the University of Leeds say people who spend a lot of time browsing the internet are more likely to show depressive symptoms. In a study to be published in the journal Psychopathology next week, researchers documented evidence that some users have developed a compulsive internet habit, whereby they replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites. The results suggest that this type of addictive surfing can have a serious impact on mental health. The internet use and depression levels of 1,319 people aged 16-51 were evaluated for the study. Of these, 1.2% were classed as being internet addicted. While small, this figure is larger than the incidence of gambling in the UK, which stands at 0.6%.

The uplifting emotion we experience when watching others perform a virtuous deed--known as "elevation"--may be enough to get us to go out and perform good acts ourselves, say new findings reported in Psychological Science.During the study, volunteers viewed either a neutral TV clip (showing scenes from a nature documentary) or an uplifting TV clip (a segment from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" showing musicians thanking their mentors) that was designed to induce feelings of elevation and then wrote an essay describing what they watched. As they received their payment and a receipt, they were to indicate if they would be willing to participate in an additional study.

The starburst region NGC 3603 is a cosmic factory where stars form frantically from the nebula's extended clouds of gas and dust. Located 22 000 light-years away from the Sun, it is the closest region of this kind known in our galaxy, providing astronomers with a local test bed for studying intense star formation processes, very common in other galaxies, but hard to observe in detail because of their great distance from us.

A new study published today in Nature suggests that approximately seven in every thousand morbidly obese people are missing a section of their DNA containing approximately 30 genes, which may be having a dramatic effect on their weight.Researchers identified the missing genes in teenagers and adults who had learning difficulties or delayed development. They found 31 people who had nearly identical 'deletions' in one copy of their DNA. All of the adults with this genetic change had a BMI of over 30, which means they were obese.

Preliminary research published this week in JAMA indicates that decreased levels of serotonin  and tryptophan hydroxylase in the brainstem are associated with an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The study included for biochemical analysis 35 infants dying from SIDS, 5 infants with acute death from known causes (controls), and 5 hospitalized infants with chronic hypoxia-ischemia (a reduction in oxygen supply combined with reduced blood flow to the brain). Tissue samples were obtained via autopsy and levels of serotonin and several enzymes, including serotonin (5-HT) and tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH2), were measured and analyzed.

A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles named Cerrejonisuchus improcerus ("small crocodile from Cerrejon") was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known, says a new study published this week in the Journal Vertebrate Paleontology.Researchers from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History found fossils of the new species of ancient crocodile in the Cerrejon Formation in northern Colombia. The site, one of the world's largest open-pit coal mines, also yielded skeletons of the giant, boa constrictor-like Titanoboa, which measured up to 45 feet long. The study is the first report of a fossil crocodyliform from the same site.

By considering molecular-level events on a broader scale, researchers now have a clearer and more complicated picture of how one class of immune cells goes wrong when loaded with cholesterol. The findings reported in Cell Metabolism show that, when it comes to the development of atherosclerosis and heart disease, it's not about any one bad actor—it's about a network gone awry.The new findings also highlight a pretty remarkable thing: researchers still aren't sure how cholesterol causes heart disease.

A theory-based, abstinence-only intervention appears to be associated with a lower rate of sexual involvement among African American sixth- and seventh-graders and can be combined with other strategies to help reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The 'primordial soup' theory--which posits that early life began in a soup of organic molecules before evolving out of the oceans millions of years later--is fatally flawed, according to researchers writing in BioEssays. Instead the authors claim it was the Earth's chemical energy, from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, which kick-started early life.In rejecting the soup theory the team turned to the Earth's chemistry to identify the energy source which could power the first primitive predecessors of living organisms: geochemical gradients across a honeycomb of microscopic natural caverns at hydrothermal vents. Thesecatalytic cells generated lipids, proteins and nucleotides giving rise to the first true cells.

Whether people will indulge or be prudent with their money is not necessarily based on personality type or education, but may be strongly influenced by advertising and other environmental cues, according to two studies recently presented at the Academy of Consumer Research Conference in Pittsburgh.In their studies of about 500 participants, the researchers divided consumers into two mindsets. The "being" mindset was related to one's current state in life, while the "becoming" mindset reflected a desire to think of one's future goals. The researchers showed volunteers an advertisement that induces a "being" state of mind, using a simple slogan like, "Think of who you are right now."