In ancient stories, and even some newer ones, the appearance of a comet or any heavenly object could symbolize a God's displeasure and even mean a sure failure in battle for one side.   Tel Aviv University researchers say comets could be even more relevant than mythology suggests; they might have actually provided the elements for the emergence of life on our planet.

Young children think about gender in the same way they think about species of animals. They believe, for example, that a boy's preference for football is innate, as is a girl's preference for dolls, just as cats' behavior is innately different from dogs'.

That's the finding of a new study from researchers at Pacific Lutheran University and the University of Michigan. The study appears in the March/April 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

A new longitudinal study of children's personality traits and interests tells us that sex-typed characteristics develop differently in girls and boys. The study, by researchers at The Pennsylvania State University, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Purdue University, appears in Child Development.

The researchers looked at first- and second-born siblings from nearly 200 mostly White, middle-class American families. They collected information through home interviews conducted over seven years, activity diaries provided by the children, and saliva samples that measured the children's testosterone levels.

The record numbers of young people who took part in last year's presidential election, along with high schools' raised expectations that students participate in community service, have led to growing research on teens' civic beliefs and behavior.

A new study finds that most young people consider civic activity to be obligatory, but their judgments and justifications about different types of civic involvement vary by gender and a variety of other factors.

A limestone countertop, a practiced eye and Google Earth all played roles in the discovery of a trove of fossils that may shed light on the origins of African wildlife.

The story concerns University of Michigan paleontologists Philip Gingerich, Gregg Gunnell and Bill Sanders and is the subject of a segment on the award-winning television series "Wild Chronicles," currently airing on public television stations (Episode 412---Looking Back; check listings for local air dates). "Wild Chronicles" is produced by National Geographic Television and presented by WLIW21 in association with WNET.ORG. 

During a seminar several years ago, University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski fielded a hostile question: Why bother classifying organisms according to their physical appearance, let alone analyze their evolutionary dynamics, when molecular techniques had already invalidated that approach?

With more than a few heads in the audience nodding their agreement, Jablonski, the William Kenan Jr. Professor in Geophysical Sciences, saw more work to be done. The question launched him on a rigorous study that has culminated in a new approach to reconciling the conflict between fossil and molecular data in evolutionary studies.