Why do some online communities succeed, like Second Life, Facebook and, well, this one, and some fail?

The answer may be in what their communities think about 'giving' and it can tell us a lot about people in general.

Everyone does something on social sites for a reason. People like to 'get paid' even if that doesn't mean money. It is why people submit articles to Digg - submitters get the satisfaction of knowing they brought an interesting article to people that they may not have found themselves.

A young star’s strange elliptical ring of dust likely heralds the presence of an undiscovered Neptune-sized planet, says a University of Rochester astronomer

Stars in the early stages of life are surrounded by dust clouds that thin out and dissipate as the star reaches maturity, becoming rings in their final stages. One star, however, has a dust ring that has long puzzled astronomers because it is not centered around the star as usual. Instead, the ring is elliptical, with the parent star off to one side.

A team of researchers led by University of Virginia Health System geneticists has uncovered a major secret in the mystery of how the DNA helix replicates itself time after time.

It turns out that it is not just the sequence of the bases (building blocks) in the DNA, but also how loosely or tightly the chromatin (the material that makes up chromosomes) is packed at different points of the chromosome that is critical.

A decade or so ago, a spate of high profile legal cases arose in which people were accused, and often convicted, on the basis of “recovered memories.” These memories, usually recollections of childhood abuse, arose years after the incident occurred and often during intensive psychotherapy.

So how accurate are recovered memories? The answer is not so clear. In fact, this question has lead to one of the most contentious issues in the fields of psychology and psychiatry.

If you've ever thought about running a public company, Sarbanes-Oxley is something you probably dread. Commonly dubbed "The Enron Law", it requires enormous oversight paperwork with the consequence that Chairmen, CEOs and Directors can go to jail if they violate it. A new University of Georgia study finds that the 2002 law has altered the makeup of corporate boards, making them larger and more independent and also had the unintended effect of increasing director pay - by more than 50 percent.

CEO pay as well. If you can go to jail for doing a job, be it Director or CEO, you demand more money to do it.

Human interaction and stimulation enhance chimpanzees’ cognitive abilities, according to new research from the Chimpanzee Cognition Center at The Ohio State University. The study (1) is the first to demonstrate that raising chimpanzees in a human cultural environment enhances their cognitive abilities, as measured by their ability to understand how tools work.

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) have attracted major interest from research and development communities as an alternative source of power. In these fuel cells electricity is generated via electro-chemical reactions using hydrogen based gas and oxygen as a fuel and oxidant, respectively.

Sealing these units is a critical technical issue that needs further work before they can be put into widespread commercial use. In particular the system chosen must exhibit good gas tightness, adhesion with adjoining components (electrolyte and connector), chemical compatibility, matching coefficient of thermal expansion and electrical insulation. Ceramic seal technology recently developed may be the solution.

Buried beneath a sulfurous cauldron in European seas lies a class of microorganisms known as “extremophiles,” so named because of the extreme environmental conditions in which they live and thrive. Almost as radical, perhaps, is the idea that these organisms and their associated enzymes could somehow unlock the key to a new transportation economy based on a renewable biofuel, lignocellulosic ethanol.

Using a robotic telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory, astronomers have for the first time measured the velocity of the explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. The material is travelling at the extraordinary speed of more than 99.999% of the velocity of light, the maximum speed limit in the Universe.

"With the development of fast-slewing ground-based telescopes such as the 0.6-m REM telescope at ESO La Silla, we can now study in great detail the very first moments following these cosmic catastrophes," says Emilio Molinari, leader of the team that made the discovery.