How people behave in a social network is somewhat mysterious, in the same way we can predict a presidential election with unprecedented accuracy but we can't predict how one person among the six percent of America that chooses a president will vote.

Decision-making often involves a confluence of opinions, decisions and behaviors of individuals influenced by their online networks, the same way they used to be shaped by their real-life networks.

A recent project set out to apply some math to help find some answers.

Ripple across social networks. Image credit: Laurel Papworth. Creative Commons

In some cases, seniors begin to show memory decline and cloudy judgment and researchers have correlated that to lost and altered connections between neurons in the brain.

A new study finds that riluzole, currently on the market as a treatment for Lou Gehrig's Disease (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS) may help prevent these changes. The team found they could stop normal, age-related memory loss in rats by treating them with riluzole. This treatment, they found, prompted changes known to improve connections, and as a result, communication, between certain neurons within the brain's hippocampus.

Modern human skeletons, with our lightly-built form, evolved only relatively recently, after the start of the Holocene about 12,000 years ago and even more recently in some human populations, according to a study that used high-resolution imaging of bone joints from modern humans and chimpanzees as well as from fossils of extinct human species.

For millions of years, extinct human predecessors had high bone density. A higher decrease in the density of lower limbs than in that of the upper limbs suggests that the transformation may be linked to humans' shift from a foraging lifestyle to a sedentary agricultural one.

No one in business can figure out what an 'SEO expert' is - in most cases it is simply the person who knows the password to the Facebook account. A new study finds that it may be better to have less popular people rather than marketing experts talking about your fundraising efforts, because people with fewer friends on Facebook raise more money for charity than those with lots of connections. 

Professor Kimberley Scharf, economist at the University of Warwick, analyzed data from JustGiving.com and found a negative correlation between the size of a group and the amount of money given by each donor - with the average contribution by each person dropping by two pence for every extra connection someone had on Facebook. 

Previous studies of hair loss have identified signals from the skin that help prompt new phases of hair growth and a new study reveals a new way to spur hair growth. 

Today is the day when a whole lot of people will be exchanging gifts that don't fit or they don't want, and maybe buying something they did want.

It's the perfect time to think about gift exchanges. Gift exchanges can reveal how people think about others, what they value and enjoy, and how they build and maintain relationships. Researchers are exploring various aspects of gift-giving and receiving, such as how givers choose gifts, how gifts are used by recipients, and how gifts impact the relationship between givers and receivers.