When Alan Pradel of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris CAT scanned a 300-million-year-old fossilized iniopterygian from Kansas, he and his colleagues saw a symmetrical blob nestled within the braincase.

This turned out to be the oldest brain found in fossil form, a wholly unexpected and rare discovery.

A female moth selects a mate based on the scent of his pheromones. An analysis of the pheromones used by the European Corn Borer (ECB, Ostrinia nubilalis) shows that females can discern a male's ancestry, age and possibly reproductive fitness from the chemical cocktail he exudes.

Jean-Marc Lassance and Christer Löfstedt from Lund University, Sweden, studied the influence of pheromones on mating preferences and carried out an analysis of the composition of the scent and genetic makeup of the animals involved. In addition, they compared the odor bouquet used by males with the scent used by females to attract potential mates.

If you're about to invest in a lot of DVDs for your new baby, here's a way to save some money; they won't help.  Of course, there is some correlation/causation data to classical music but it's correlation/causation data because parents who listen to classical music and buy it for their kids tend to be better educated and care about their kids' education, which is reflected in more ways than just music.

Planetary geologists at Brown University have found a gully fan system on Mars that formed about 1.25 million years ago. The fan offers compelling evidence that it was formed by melt water that originated in nearby snow and ice deposits and may stand as the most recent period when water flowed on the planet.

Gullies are known to be young surface features on Mars. But scientists studying the planet have struggled with locating gullies they can conclusively date. In a paper that appears on the cover of the March issue of Geology, the Brown geologists were able to date the gully system and hypothesize what water was doing there.

Want your kids to eat more carrots?   Call them 'X-ray carrots', says a new Cornell University study which shows that giving vegetables catchy new names – like X-Ray Vision Carrots and Tomato Bursts – left preschoolers asking for more.

When 186 four-year olds were given carrots called "X-ray Vision Carrots" ate nearly twice as much as they did on the lunch days when they were simply labeled as "carrots." The Robert Wood Johnson-funded study also showed the influence of these names might persist. Children continued to eat about 50% more carrots even on the days when they were no longer labeled. The new findings were presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the School Nutrition Association in Washington DC. 

Young men who have served in the British Armed Forces are up to three times more likely to take their own lives than their civilian counterparts, research published tomorrow (March 3) has found.

Researchers at The University of Manchester's Centre for Suicide Prevention linked UK military discharge data between 1996 and 2005 with details of suicides collected by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicides and Homicides.