Taking body size into account, the black piranha and the extinct megapiranha have the most powerful bites of carnivorous fishes throughout known history.

It's no surprise they were both in the finals: The piranhas' specialized jaw morphology allows them to attack and bite chunks out of much larger prey and their aggressive nature, relatively small size and accessible populations make them a suitable group of predatory vertebrates in which to study the evolution of extreme biting capabilities. Even at their small body sizes, diet studies indicate that piranhas will attack and bite chunks of bony fins and flesh from prey many times larger than themselves.

The Australian mega bat and a Chinese micro bat may provide clues to the future treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer in people, say researchers. 

These bats evolved flight, resistance to viruses and the ability to live relatively long time, say the team sequencing the genomes of the two bat species. They then compared the bat genomes to the genomes of eight other mammals, including humans, to find similarities and differences.
 

The scholarly journal Parallax (vol. 16, no.3, 2010) is a special edition on the subject of ‘YES!’.

Gary Peters, who is Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at York St. John University, UK, is guest-editor for the issue, and is also author of one of the key papers 'Yes, No, Don't know'

Neil Shubin alert: Researchers have found evidence that the development of hands and feet occurred through the gain of new DNA elements that activate particular genes - and they used a zebrafish to show it. 

The transition from water to land was obviously a major event in the history of vertebrate
life. In order to understand how fins may have evolved into limbs, researchers introduced extra Hoxd13, a gene known to play a role in distinguishing body parts, at the tip of a zebrafish embryo's fin. This led to the generation of new cartilage tissue and the reduction of fin tissue—changes that are similar to key aspects of land-animal limb development. 

A new study indicates that clay minerals, formed when water is present for long periods of time, cover a larger portion of Mars than previously thought. Clays were in some of the rocks studied by Opportunity when it landed at Eagle crater in 2004. The rover only detected acidic sulfates and has since driven about 22 miles to Endeavour Crater and clay minerals have been detected using a spectroscopic analysis from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The clays also exist in the Meridiani plains that Opportunity rolled over as it trekked toward its current position. 

Trousers have to be tried on – the variation between size labeling and actual clothing size is huge. This is shown by the report "Large? Clothing sizes and size labeling", which looks at the relationship between clothing sizes and the actual clothing measurements as well as consumers' views on and experiences of this.

The study of epigenetics in psychiatry promises several key advances, as noted by Eric J. Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., a Deputy Editor for Biological Psychiatry and an expert in this field.

First, it enables, for the first time, direct study of mechanisms controlling transcription, the process of expressing the genetic information coded within DNA, in the brains of behaving animals as well as in brain tissue from humans studied at autopsy.

Second, some epigenetic changes in the brain are likely to be extremely long-lived, and thereby represent potential mechanisms by which life events, or psychotropic drugs or even psychotherapy, can produce stable, long-lasting changes in behavior.

It may not work with the ladies, but when it comes to leading a team tasked with developing new products and bringing them to market, new research from North Carolina State University shows that being nice and playing well with others gives you a very real competitive advantage. One new study shows that project managers can get much better performance from their team when they treat team members with honesty, kindness and respect.

A second study shows that product development teams can reap significant quality and cost benefits from socializing with people who work for their suppliers.

In the aftermath of the Newtown, CT shooting, people are searching for answers. The mental illness aspect is obvious, much like with the psychology graduate student in Colorado who opened fire on viewers at a theater, but this time the focus is on the anti-social tendencies of Adam Lanza and how they were exacerbated by video game and Hollywood violence.

In a discovery that may prove important for cognitive science, our understanding of nature and applications for robot vision, researchers at the University of Adelaide have found evidence that the dragonfly is capable of higher-level thought processes when hunting its prey.