It should be clear that the vast majority of biological interactions are largely indifferent to others, while there is also a high degree of cooperation as necessitated by the evolution of sexual reproduction. It is this level of cooperation that has also given rise to many animals living in groups or participating in group arrangements.



While there are many animals that are asocial, there are also a significant number that regularly interact and form groups of varying sizes. It should be clear that the formation of such groups is a cooperative effort, but more importantly it also gives rise to an additional consideration since there is often a “cost” associated in belonging.

MADRID, May 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Phase 3 study has demonstrated that Induction Chemotherapy prior to ChemoRadiotherapy significantly increased time-to-treatment failure in comparison to standard ChemoRadiotherapy alone -

D'you dig the Geek Off? Did you email your answers to geekoff@gmail.com? If not, too late sucka! That is, too late until Monday morning, when we play another round of the feud. Yep, every week there's a Geek Off and every week you can win a free Geeks' Guide to World Domination: Be Afraid, Beautiful People. Check the quiz Monday, email your answers 'til Friday at midnight EST, then check the answers and fight about corrections starting Saturday morning.

A new, international study found that the combination of two drugs delays disease progression for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results from the Phase III “ATLAS” trial were presented today by Dr. Vincent Miller of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. 

According to the National Cancer Institute, in 2008 the estimated number of new lung cancer cases (non-small cell and small cell combined) was 215,000 and the number of deaths was 161,840. Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common among all lung cancers and is usually associated with a history of tobacco use.

Recent research says that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere and now a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finds that just the ring of a cell phone may be equally distracting, especially when it comes in a classroom setting or includes a familiar song as a ringtone.

Students exposed to a briefly ringing cell phone scored 25 percent worse on a test of material presented before the distraction.

'True muonium' is a long-theorized but never-seen tiny atom that was first proposed more than 50 years ago.  True muonium, which unlike "muonium" (an atom made of an electron and an anti-muon) is made of a muon and an anti-muon.   Both muons and anti-muons are created frequently in nature when energetic particles from space — cosmic rays — strike the Earth's atmosphere yet their existence is fleeting and their combination, 'true muonium,' decays naturally into other particles in a few trillionths of a second. This has made observation impossible.

But it might be observed even in current collider experiments, according to theoretical work published recently by researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Arizona State University.

This is going to be a rather long piece, so for the lazy and the absent-minded among you I decided to put together an executive summary at the top, and not at the bottom of the article as I usually do. It is a bit of a spoiler, but those of you who can invest some time reading about particle physics will not be deterred by the first few lines of text. Besides, an executive summary is needed because we are discussing real news here: so here it is.

Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. This may even be a result, in part, of divergent neural responses.

I don't know much about the science behind this, but the NY Time's Nicholas Kristof points readers to an online survey set up by some psychologists to study morals and political beliefs:

AMSTERDAM, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --

- Binding declaration covers largest securities fraud settlement on record in Europe - Shell to pay foundation representing 150+ institutional investors in nineteen countries stemming from company's prior misstatements of proven oil gas reserves; US law firm Grant Eisenhofer represents international investor group

Officially approving the largest securities fraud settlement ever reached in Europe, a Dutch appeals court has ordered Royal Dutch Shell plc. to begin payment of US$381 million plus interest to a foundation representing a group of institutional investors from 17 European countries, plus Canada and Australia.

PARIS, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) annual ordinary and extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting held on May 29, 2009 approved all the proposed resolutions. Shareholders present or represented by proxy had in the aggregate a total of 1,152.6 million shares, which represented a quorum of 51.008 per cent.

The Shareholders' Meeting thus approved the 2008 financial and consolidated statements.

For 2008, there was no dividend distribution.