Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond can delay biological ageing by up to 12 years and prolong independence during old age, concludes an analysis published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, improves the body’s oxygen consumption and its use in generating energy (metabolism).

But maximal aerobic power starts to fall steadily from middle age, decreasing by around 5 ml/[kg.min] every decade.

Inter-country adoptions are causing a rise in the number of children in orphanages in EU countries, say psychologists at the University of Liverpool.

More adoptions are leading to higher numbers of children in institutions, says the study, because in EU countries such as France and Spain, people are choosing to adopt healthy, white children from abroad rather than children in their own country who are mainly from ethnic minorities.

Researchers found that EU countries with high proportions of international adoptions also had the highest rates of children living in institutions. High adoption did not reduce the number of children in institutional care but they say instead attributed to an increase.

Aimed primarily at the increasing problem of terrorist acts by individuals affiliated with groups such as the Animal Liberation Front against investigators conducting research in non-human primates in the United States, an editorial in Biological Psychiatry goes after people who slam the integrity ("who does their funding?" and physical safety of medical researchers.

Collectively, the 87 authors of “It Is Time to Take a Stand for Medical Research and Against Terrorism Targeting Medical Scientists” say they wish to not only declare their stance against these acts, but also to emphasize the unique and vital role that non-human primate research plays in furthering our understanding of the neurobiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Open Knowledge, cyber-activism and social uses of technologies are some of the topics that Dutch Media theorist and activist Geert Lovink likes to tackle. He is Associate Professor in the Media & Culture department at the University of Amsterdam and holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne. He is founder and director of the Institute of Network Cultures and co-founder of Internet projects such as The Digital City, Nettime, Fibreculture and Incommunicado. Lovink is also the author of "Dark Fiber", which has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Romanian, German and Japanese.

Lovink visited Spain this week to talk about ‘The politics of open knowledge production’ at El Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and ‘About critic culture in the Internet’ in Seville at Zemos98 Festival and Enrique Sacristan from Servicio de Informacion y Noticias Cientificas(SINC) conducted this interview:

In mice, child neglect is a product of both nature and nurture, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison describe a strain of mice that exhibit unusually high rates of maternal neglect, with approximately one out of every five females failing to care for her offspring. By comparing the good mothers to their less attentive relatives, the group has found that negligent parenting seems to have both genetic and non-genetic influences, and may be linked to dysregulation of the brain signaling chemical dopamine.

As a possible model for human child neglect, these mice offer a valuable opportunity to investigate the biological and behavioral bases of naturally occurring maternal neglect, say UW-Madison zoology professor Stephen Gammie, who led the study, and co-author psychology professor Anthony Auger.

Suitors can tell a young person’s attitude toward sexual relationships by the look on their face, according to new research which researchers say gives deeper insight into mate attractiveness.

The study of 700 heterosexual participants also found that young men and women look for complete opposites when it comes to relationships with the other sex.

In no great shock to anyone who is now or has ever been young, men generally prefer women who they perceive are open to short-term sexual relationships whilst women are usually interested in men who appear to have potential to be long-term relationship material.