It's not often that the Hallmark Channel gets a shout-out on Science 2.0 but when they send young people into space, I'm in. I got an email about an upcoming movie and it intrigued me so the publicist not only put me in touch with interesting people to interview, they sent along an exclusive clip just for you.  Bonus: There is also a sweepstakes and we all love to win free stuff.

“The stereotype of women’s limited parking skills is deeply anchored in modern culture.” But has rarely been scientifically investigated, prompting Claudia Wolf, M.Sc. and Sebastian Ocklenburg M.Sc. and colleagues at the Fakultät für Psychologie, Institut für Kognitive Neurowissenschaft, Abteilung Biopsychologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, to perform an experimental study.

New Arctic - New Discoveries

The world is warming, but the Arctic is warming fastest.  The Arctic of today is not the Arctic which 18th or 19th century explorers knew.  Where ships were once likely to be crushed in heavy ice there is now often no ice in summer.  Where ice shove once built natural sea walls we find coastal erosion as waves are now free to erode melting permafrost.  New islands are being discovered, even as older islands erode away into sandbanks.

Do you know, my original title for this was "The Early Bird Gets the PR". I hastily changed it before posting because it was the most cynical title of I'd ever read, of anything, ever. But, it has undeniably happened. We have another earliest bird that has once again knocked Archaeopteryx off of its perch.

Here it is; it's called Aurornis xui, and here is Jon Tennant covering it for Discover.

Does more food labeling related to calories and nutrition make a difference? 

About one third of American kids and teens is overweight or obese, nearly triple the rate in 1963, making it a much bigger health concern than smoking or drug abuse. Meanwhile, a paper in the Journal of Public Health says obese kids are more likely to be paying attention to calorie information in restaurants.  40 percent of kids aged 9-18 read calorie information yet 33 percent are overweight.

What gives?

 Much like in Frank Herbert’s "Dune", a science-fiction epic about characters attempting to rule a planet torn apart by conflict, the issue of balancing desires for resources, and their impact on people, faces much of Africa today. The planet that serves as the stage for that story, a barren desert where control over said resources dictates human events, in many ways mimics the present situation on the African continent.

Global use of nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels, according to a paper in Environmental Science&Technology.

Because government mandates and subsidies for ethanol have caused grain prices to increase, pig farmers have instead looked for alternatives. One of those is distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a co-product of ethanol that has expanded along with that industry.

But it is an evolving feed and some believe that unsaturated fatty acids in distillers dried grains leads to increased oxidation, which affects texture, color, juiciness and the overall flavor of pork products, and therefore the shelf life.  Some producers believe they can counteract that by feeding pigs saturated fats which will undo the fat-softening effects of DDGS. Firmer fat means longer-lasting pork. 

Pundits are wrong more often than they are right but when preaching to the faithful, being accurate is less important than being confident. It's no different in politics or sports or business shows. 

You often choose to be accurate - or be popular. 

"In a perfect world, you want to be accurate and confident," says Jadrian Wooten of Washington State University economics program, who co-wrote a paper on the subject with Ben Smith, a fellow economics graduate. Smith originally wanted to test the accuracy and confidence of stock market pundits, taking inspiration from stock watcher and perpetual CNBC yeller Jim Cramer.

Psychology students, male and female, lie about their sexual behavior to match the cultural expectations of how they perceive other students believe men or women should act – even though they wouldn't distort other gender-related behaviors, a new paper has concluded.