In March 2011, a surgical team at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) performed the first full face transplantation (FFT) in the United States and went on to complete a total of three FFTs this year.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers evaluate FFT in the US and describe details of patient preparation, design and execution of the operation as well as unique immunosuppression protocol allowing for lowest long-term maintenance drug regimen. They also share details of the early functional outcomes and demonstrate FFT as a viable option in the treatment of severe facial deformities and injuries. 

Prejudice is just bigotry that arises from flawed ideology, right?  Not so, say the authors of a new paper.

They contend prejudice stems from a deeper psychological need and it is associated with a particular way of thinking. People who aren't comfortable with ambiguity and want to make quick and firm decisions are also prone to making generalizations about others. People who are prejudiced feel a much stronger need to make quick and firm judgments and decisions in order to reduce ambiguity.

And, they argue, it's virtually impossible to change this basic way that people think.

Champagne, unlike other wines, undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle to trap carbon dioxide gas, which dissolves into the wine and forms the fabled bubbles in the bubbly. More than 600 different chemical compounds join carbon dioxide in champagne, each lending its own unique quality to the aroma and flavor of champagne. 

But even with all of that flavor, champagne would be just another white wine without those tiny bubbles. As the bubbles ascend the length of a glass in tiny trains, they drag along molecules of those 600 flavor and aroma substances. They literally explode out of the surface as the bubbles burst, tickling the nose and stimulating the senses.

The last 65 million years of natural history in North America may be broken into six distinct, consecutive waves of mammal species diversity, or evolutionary faunas', according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Swiss Army Jewelry?

The recent discovery of a pendant at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest on the Iberian Peninsula.  This stone is nine centimeters long and has a hole for hanging it from the neck although it would seem it was used to sharpen tools. 

The late Devonian, about 390 million years ago to roughly 360 million years ago, was a time of struggle and escape for fish in a drying environment, theorized paleontologist Alfred Romer.  That circumstances and necessity for continued survival were vital in fish-tetrapod transition.