In the world of technology, tools can be fast, cheap or easy to use - but you only get to pick two of those three.

Everyone knows that, it is common across all product development, yet a surprising number of people think medicine is somehow exempt - they want new, better drugs fast, they want them to be safe, and they want them to cost $4.

We want to keep smart people developing, not milking old technology cows, so we have a patent on drugs that eventually expires. Then the drugs can be made by someone else. Since they did no research, and incur no clinical trial expenses, these generic companies will produce them much cheaper and the high-end market can move on to solving new problems.

Research suggests that the ratio of the lengths of the index finger and the ring finger in males may be predictive of a variety of disorders related to disturbed hormonal balance. When the index finger is shorter than the ring finger, this results in a small 2D:4D ratio, pointing to a high exposure to testosterone in the uterus.

In a new study of 103 male patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 100 matched healthy male individuals, investigators found that the 2D:4D ratio may be an effective predictor of schizophrenia--there were significant differences between schizophrenia and control groups concerning the ratio of the lengths of the second digit to the fourth digit, as well as its asymmetry, in both hands.

For every parent who ever wondered what the heck their teens were thinking when they posted risky information or pictures on social media, a team scholars suggests that they do not think like most adults do. 

In the analysis, the IT authors report that the way teens learn how to manage privacy risk online is much different than how adults approach privacy management. While most adults think first and then ask questions, teens tend to take the risk and then seek help, said Haiyan Jia, post-doctoral scholar at Penn State in information sciences and technology. 

To increase the biomass of fish, contemporary ecological theory predicts that either the amount of food or the quality of the food has to increase. In a recent experiment, researchers at Umeå University doubled the fish biomass under identical food supply and food quality by only controlling how much of total food supply that was channelled to juvenile and adult fish, respectively. The results have major implications for the exploitation (harvest) of fish populations and the coexistence of predatory fish and their prey.

High prices for cancer drugs are affecting patient care in the U.S. but there are no magic buttons to push to make that go away. Development takes longer than ever and is under more government rules than ever, while the patent window remains small and lawsuit judgments if things go wrong are unlimited.

Writing in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a group of oncologists say they have answers. Unfortunately, their simplistic take on economics would mean pharmaceutical development will become the modern generation's version of the steel industry and leave the country and never come back.