Curated News: Staff Picks

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Four people meet for dinner in a restaurant and split the check four ways. Anyone who ordered more or something more expensive than the others gains an advantage from the situation. Social dilemmas like this one also occur in animals - such as during communal offspring care. Biologists from the University of Zurich studied how house mice are able to prevent social dilemmas and still cooperate. The results of their study reveal that house mice adjust their willingness to cooperate to the to the expected pay-off.

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Self-harm is intentional self-poisoning or self-injury. Many people who are admitted to hospital because of this are at an increased risk of self- harming again and of suicide. It is a major problem in many countries, leads to high levels of distress for patients and their families and friends, and places significant demands on health services.

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Psychologists have discovered a new genetic link between impulsivity and teenage binge-drinking.

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A rare, severe form of pulmonary hypertension, which up until now, has only been classified as a human lung disease, has also been discovered in dogs according to a Michigan State University study.

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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured images of Comet 252P/LINEAR after the comet passed by Earth on March 21. The visit was one of the closest encounters between a comet and our planet. The Hubble images taken on April 4 reveal a narrow, well-defined jet of dust ejected by the comet's icy nucleus. The jet also appears to change direction in the images, which is evidence that the comet's nucleus is spinning.

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Flick a switch on a dark winter day and your office is flooded with bright light, one of many everyday miracles to which we are all usually oblivious.A physicist would probably describe what is happening in terms of the particle nature of light. An atom or molecule in the fluorescent tube that is in an excited state spontaneously decays to a lower energy state, releasing a particle called a photon.

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While much has been made about the dangers of texting and driving, less attention has been focused on the age-old distractions of being absent minded or upset while driving. A team of researchers from the University of Houston (UH) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) focused on all three of these important factors.

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Rice University bioengineers offer tissue engineers flexibility in designing replacement valves.

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Walking through Harvard Yard, you see it every day - one person stops to look up at a tree, perhaps trying to catch a glimpse of hawks that call the area home - and soon most passers-by are stopping to look in the same direction.

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A new way to turn a simple, abundant molecule into a complex, value-added one.

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Australian archaeologists have discovered a piece of the world's oldest axe in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.

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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria most often are associated with hospitals and other health-care settings, but a new study indicates that chicken coops and sewage treatment plants also are hot spots of antibiotic resistance.

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A new study shows that the Kepler-223 star system is trapped in an orbital configuration that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune may have broken from in the early history of the solar system.

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The study suggests that we experience symbolic objects as social entities.

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Wide variations can be seen in how far citizens from different countries evade tax. While this can be attributed to how well institutions deter tax avoidance through audits and fines, cultural differences may also play a part.

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Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Newcastle have uncovered the secret of the 'Mona Lisa of chemical reactions' - in a bacterium that lives at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

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A researcher at the University of Colorado Denver has found that Neanderthals in Europe showed signs of nutritional stress during periods of extreme cold, suggesting climate change may have contributed to their demise around 40,000 years ago.

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A remarkably high diversity of the wingless long-horned beetles in the mountains of northern Borneo is reported by three Czech researchers from the Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. Apart from the genera and species new to science, the entomologists report the first case of reproduction by live birth in this rarely collected group of beetles. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

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Climate change is melting glaciers, reducing sea-ice cover and increasing wildlife activity - with some of the most dramatic impacts occurring in the northern high latitudes.

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Two mouse models of Zika virus infection in pregnancy have been developed by a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In them, the virus migrated from the pregnant mouse’s bloodstream into the placenta and then to the brains of the developing pups.

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Scientists make an important breakthrough in understanding the impact of oxygen exposure on the aging process of mammal cells.

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A doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania has identified a new species of fossil dog. The specimen, found in Maryland, would have roamed the coast of eastern North America approximately 12 million years ago, at a time when massive sharks like megalodon swam in the oceans.

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Northern cardinals and tufted titmice are two abundant bird species in the woods of eastern North America. Many bird and mammal species rely on information from tufted titmice calls to detect and respond to dangerous predators. This causes important information networks to form around tufted titmouse communication. Normally, northern cardinals listen to tufted titmouse predator alarm calls and will typically respond by fleeing or freezing until the danger passes.

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Chronic use of some drugs for heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) speeds up the aging of blood vessels, according to a published paper in Circulation Research (early online), an American Heart Association journal. This accelerated aging in humans could lead to increased cardiovascular disease, vascular dementia and renal failure.

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Scientists and engineers from the Universities of Bristol and Western Australia have developed how to efficiently simulate a "quantum walk" on a new design for a primitive quantum computer.

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Repeat ketamine infusions decreased -- and for some, eliminated -- suicidal thoughts in outpatients with treatment-resistant depression.

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Everyone has been there. No sooner did you or your child touch that old wooden bench when a small sliver of wood slides into the skin – causing a surprising amount of pain. Fortunately, say dermatologists, splinters are easy to remove with the proper tools and technique.

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When you take acetaminophen to reduce your pain, you may also be decreasing your empathy for both the physical and social aches that other people experience, a new study suggests.

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Sufferers from the disorder spend about 60% of their waking time in an imaginary world they have created, realizing that it is a fantasy, and without losing contact with the real world. “One man told us about 35 characters participating in the repertoire of stories he imagines. Another related how for 30 years now he has been repeatedly imagining the plots of a series which is constantly evolving. With time, it takes over their lives,” said Professor Eli Somer of the University of Haifa, who identified the disorder

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Whether fish hunt nearshore or in the open water and what prey they eat affect the amount of mercury that accumulates in them, a Dartmouth College study shows.

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An Otago-led team of scientists using techniques from the field of dentistry is shedding new light on the evolution of walruses, fur seals and sea lions. The researchers have cast further doubt on previous claims that an ancient "killer walrus" was a marine mammal eater.

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New study finds users focus on concrete details rather than the big picture.

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Differences between four microRNAs in humans, other great apes linked to expression levels, function.

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A study using functional-MRI brain scanning reveals certain areas of the brain have higher activity in children who are socially withdrawn or reticent compared to children who are not withdrawn.

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A new study provides insight into how the current El Niño, one of the strongest on record, formed in the Pacific Ocean. The new research finds easterly winds in the tropical Pacific Ocean stalled a potential El Niño in 2014 and left a swath of warm water in the central Pacific. The presence of that warm water stacked the deck for a monster El Niño to occur in 2015, according to the study's authors.

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Biological manufacturing process, pioneered by three Lehigh University engineers, produces equivalent quantum dots to those made chemically--but in a much greener, cheaper way.

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With opioid addiction and prescription drug abuse considered one of the biggest public health threats of our time in the U.S., many are asking why so many Americans are struggling with addiction to illegal drugs and prescription medications. New research suggests that chronic pain may be part of the answer.

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Just how global warming is making storms more destructive has been established by Australian researchers.

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New research that discusses how people will interact with technology in the future will be presented this week at one of the world's most important conferences on human-computer interfaces, ACM CHI 2016, in San Jose, USA [7-12 May].

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A new study shows the extent of the challenge faced by the upstate New York distribution grid during Super Storm Sandy in October 2012, and suggests what might be done to make the system more resilient against future storms.

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NASA has selected an Arizona State University undergraduate student team for a $200,000 grant to conduct hands-on flight research, through its NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Student Instrument Program (USIP).

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Erkki Ruoslahti and colleagues provide proof of principle for safe, targeted delivery of drugs to the placenta during pregnancy.

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Scientists used clay models to discover how the croc-sized reptile's strange jaw worked.

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The saltiness, or salinity, of seawater depends largely on how much moisture is pulled into the air as evaporative winds sweep over the ocean. But pinpointing where the moisture rains back down is a complicated question scientists have long contended with.

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Kids Eating Habits, Video Games Helping Kids Eat Fruits and Veggies, New Ways to Stop Weight Gain in Young Adults, and More in the Obesity News Source

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For the first time ever, an international research team under his direction studied the geographical pattern by which new species of corals and reef fish evolved over the millions of years of evolutionary history using a computer model.

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A new University of Sussex study has cleared the air on what lies behind hot dust visible in the distant universe.

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How did birds get their wings? Bacteria may provide a clue, say scientists.

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Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have used a completely new preclinical technique and analysis of tissue from patients to show exactly what happens when certain patients with Parkinson's disease are restored as a result of nerve cell transplants. They have also identified what makes many of the transplant patients develop serious side effects in the form of involuntary movements.

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A new study reports that short sleep duration combined with frequent snoring reported prior to cancer diagnosis may influence subsequent breast cancer survival.