Zircon crystals from Western Australia's Jack Hills region crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, building on earlier studies that used lead isotopes to date Australian zircons and identify them as the oldest bits of the Earth's crust. The microscopic zircon crystal is now confirmed to be the oldest known material of any kind formed on Earth. 

A new study strengthens the theory of a "cool early Earth," where temperatures were low enough for liquid water, oceans and a hydrosphere not long after the planet's crust congealed from a sea of molten rock. The study reinforces the belief that Earth had a hydrosphere before 4.3 billion years ago and possibly life not long afte.

The upside to global warming might be milder winters. This would naturally lead to fewer deaths to due cold but an analysis of data from the past 60 years shows that is not likely.

Polio is an incurable, crippling, contagious and possibly fatal viral disease. The United States last experienced a polio epidemic in the 1950s, before a vaccine was introduced. 

Today, it has been eradicated from most of the planet, but a polio-like syndrome has been found in a cluster of children from California over a one-year period, according to a case report released today.

Can diet give you a better memory?

It seems to, at least when it comes to an animal cognition test using lemurs. A study of five lemur species found that fruit-eatershad better spatial memory than lemurs with a more varied diet. The researchers conclude that relying on foods that are seasonally available and far-flung gives a competitive edge to individuals with certain cognitive abilities - such as remembering where the food is.

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) mission studies the chromosphere, that layer of the sun's atmosphere that is key to regulating the flow of energy and material as they travel from the sun's surface out into space.

Along the way, the energy heats up the upper atmosphere, the corona, and sometimes powers solar events such as this flare. IRIS is equipped with a spectrograph that can separate out the light it sees into its individual wavelengths, which in turn correlates to material at different temperatures, velocities and densities.

Rule breakers are often more creative, because they are not bound by conventional ideas. So are liars.

Yet one of those has a positive connotation and one is negative. But lying about performance on one task increased creativity on a subsequent task, by making people feel less bound by conventional rules, finds a paper in Psychological Science.

To examine the link between dishonesty and creativity,
lead researcher Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School
and colleague Scott Wiltermuth of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California designed a series of experiments that allowed, and even sometimes encouraged, people to cheat.