A new study and a new microbe provides a new understanding of how, billions of years ago, the complex cell types that comprise plants, fungi, but also animals and humans, evolved from simple microbes, according to a new paper.

Cells are the basic building blocks of all life on our planet. Yet, whereas the cells of bacteria and other microbes are small and simple, all visible life, including us humans, is generally made up of large and complex cell types.

The origin of these complex cell types has long been a mystery to the scientific community, but now researchers writing in Nature detail discovery of a new group of microorganisms that represents a missing link in the evolutionary transition from simple to complex cells.

New data from the spacecraft that orbited Mercury for four years before crashing into the planet a week ago reveals Mercury's magnetic field is almost four billion years old. The discovery helps scientists piece together the history of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun and one about which we knew very little before MESSENGER. 

NASA's MESSENGER probe left Earth in 2004, reached Mercury in 2008 and has orbited the planet since 2011, sending data back .  Researchers used data obtained by MESSENGER in the fall of 2014 and 2015 when the probe flew incredibly close to the planet's surface - at altitudes as low as 15 kilometers, and a new study detailing the planet's ancient magnetic field was published in Science Express.

Generic drugs are the same as a name brand. The only difference is that a generic company does not research or clinical trials and since the product is outside patent, they only have the cost of manufacturing, so costs are lower and the product is cheaper.

Yet we are increasingly in a precautionary principle world, in everything from vaccines to food, so it is little surprise that patients prefer name brand drugs more. Though large pharmaceutical companies are being attacked in a culture war, they are still considered more trustworthy than a generic, which most people equate with lower quality materials.

People with depression or bipolar disorder often feel their thinking ability has gotten "fuzzy", or less sharp than before their symptoms began, and a new study published in BRAIN finds that the effect is real - and rooted in brain activity differences that show up on advanced brain scans. 

According to a new paper, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the impact of Saturday morning cartoons, in particular the popular 1980s cartoon series "The Transformers", and what it did to shape children's perceptions of what behaviors are associated with effective leadership.

"The Transformers" started in 1984 with a toy line of transforming factions of alien robots fighting a civil war that spread to Earth -- the "good" Autobots, seeking peace, and the "bad" Decepticons, vying for galactic domination. The franchise has grown to include animation, comic books, video games and films, grossing more than $1 billion, whereas their competitors at the time, the Go-Bots, have been left behind.

Ethanol fuel refineries could be releasing much larger amounts of some ozone-forming compounds into the atmosphere than previous estimates. 

Ethanol, a government mandated and subsidized renewable transportation fuel made from corn, now constitutes approximately 10 percent of the fuel used in gasoline vehicles in the U.S., according to the new study. The renewable fuel mandate was a successful environmental effort to increase the use of ethanol and other renewable fuels aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum imports, while encouraging development and expansion of the U.S. renewable fuels sector, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.