You've seen advertisements for brain training games, apps, and websites that promise to give your mental abilities a boost - even "Baby Einstein" videos for infants make the claim that they will lead to higher intelligence.

A new paper finds that brain training programs might strengthen the ability to hold information but they won't bring any benefits to intelligence, like helping you reason and solve problems.

The cognitive boost claims are based on correlations between working memory capacity (WMC), our ability to keep information either in mind or quickly retrievable, particularly in the presence of distraction, and general fluid intelligence. General fluid intelligence is the ability to infer relationships, do complex reasoning, and solve novel problems.

Marijuana use continues to be on the upswing in the United States. A public relations campaign claiming health benefits while ignoring health risks have led to diminishing public disapproval and more lenient legislation.

People who disapprove of a particular drug are unlikely to use it, but what about the gateway affect? Does the use of one drug affects people's attitudes toward using other drugs? Do personality traits matter?

High school seniors who frown upon the use of drugs are most likely to be female, nonsmokers or hold strong religious beliefs, according to a paper by Joseph Palamar of New York University. Palamar that examines how teenagers' attitudes toward marijuana influenced their thoughts on the further use of other illicit drugs. 

The early days of Ashkenazi Jews – that is, Jews with more recent ancestry in central and Eastern Europe – are a hot debate topic. It is believed that their ancestors migrated into Europe from Judea in the first century A.D., after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, and that led to some intermarriage with Europeans later on.  

Others have argued that they have a mainly European ancestry, and arose by conversion to Judaism of indigenous Europeans, especially in Italy. While still others have even argued that they were largely assimilated in the North Caucasus during the time of the Khazar Empire, the Turkic people in the Western steppe whose rulers turned to Judaism around of the tenth century AD.

We're better off if chemicals we use in everyday life are created from renewable resources using biotechnology - currently many of those chemicals are instead derived from fossil resources.

The earliest evidence of a comet entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding has been found. It rained down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been found. 

The regions of the U.S. that have doctors and hospitals consolidated into large networks are more likely to have accountable care organizations - medical practice structures that seek to improve medical care and reduce costs - according to a new RAND Corporation paper written to bolster support for the federal Affordable Care Act. 

Consolidation and accelerating growth of large accountable care organizations are a key cost control strategy for Obamacare.