Females of all ages are less active than their male peers according to two studies presented today which reveal the gender difference in activity levels among school children and the over 70s. Both studies show males to be more physically active than females.

At least in the United Kingdom.  

The two studies are being presented at the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine annual conference (incorporating the National Prevention Research Initiative conference) at the University of Exeter (UK).

Two new efforts have taken a famous supernova remnant from the static to the dynamic. A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows changes in time never seen before in this type of object. A separate team will also release a dramatic three-dimensional visualization of the same remnant.

Nearly ten years ago, Chandra's "First Light" image of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) revealed previously unseen structures and detail. Now, after eight years of observation, scientists have been able to construct a movie that tracks the remnant's expansion and changes over time.

If your mother smoked, you're more likely to be an aggressive kid, according to a new Canada-Netherlands study published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.

And mothers who smoke, give birth under 21 and are poor should have caused North American to be overrun by the societal equivalent of Middle East dictators by now -  so take what you want from that.  While previous studies have shown that smoking during gestation causes low birth weight, this research claims mothers who light up during pregnancy predispose their offspring to an additional risk: violent behavior. 

For a long time, we have been told that exercise is key to weight loss.   If you don't have time to exercise, or can't, your excuse is built in.   

Not so, says a recent international study.  It comes down to knowing how many calories your body needs and eating that or less.   Exercise can simply increase the calories you may ingest without gaining weight.  Oddly, we knew this in 1908 but it seems to have been lost somewhere.

A team of researchers at Princeton University and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has identified a long-sought gene that is fatefully switched on in 30 to 40 percent of all breast cancer patients, spreading the disease, resisting traditional chemotherapies and eventually leading to death.

The gene, called "Metadherin" or MTDH, is located in a small region of human chromosome 8 and appears to be crucial to cancer's spread or metastasis because it helps tumor cells stick tightly to blood vessels in distant organs. The gene also makes tumors more resistant to the powerful chemotherapeutic agents normally used to wipe out the deadly cells.

We may not be using it for navigation any time soon, but a new map of our own Milky Way galaxy provides other answers about the structure of our galaxy, and resolves conflicting information gathered from previous surveys.

Many previous mappings of the Milky Way have focused on either the inner galaxy or the outer galaxy, and as a result, different surveys have found different numbers of spiral arms - two in the inner galaxy and four in the outer. Now, Iowa State University has completed the first map of the entire system of galactic spiral arms, which shows two arms at the center branching into four on the outside.

BOSTON, January 5 /PRNewswire/ --

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the global leader in information protection and storage services, announced that the Company's common stock was added to the SP 500 Index after the market closed today.

It is a tremendous honor to join the prestigious SP 500 Index, and we take great pride in this achievement, said Bob Brennan, Iron Mountain's president and chief executive officer. We view our inclusion as recognition of the importance of our services and the strength of our market position. It is also a testament to the hard work and dedication of the more than 20,000 Iron Mountain employees around the world.

BOULOGNE-BILLANCOURT, France, January 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Non-Renewal of Exceptional Advertising Expenditure - Disposal of Chinese Operations

MEETIC (FR0004063097 - MEET), Europe's leading player in online dating, today announced that it will focus on profitability in 2009.

Objective: EBITDA margin of between 20% and 25% in 2009

- Non-renewal of exceptional advertising expenditure

As announced at the start of the year, MEETIC allocated around EUR15 million of exceptional advertising expenditure in 2008, mainly spent on offline branding. The aim was to increase the profile of the Group's brands in the strategic markets of the UK (DatingDirect), Germany (newly acquired Neu.de), and of its new matchmaking service MeeticAffinity.

Salon has an interview with Stuart Kauffman, a biologist who has written multiple fascinating books about complex systems. Kauffman has a new book, Reinventing the Sacred, in which he argues that we need to toss out scientific reductionism and take a new, holistic approach to science and rename it God. But how bad is the problem really?

Laplace famously claimed that if we knew the initial position and momentum of all the particles in the universe, we could confidently predict the future of the universe - that is, the universe is completely deterministic. Quantum mechanics seems to indicate that it is not - there is a graininess to the universe at a fundamental level (unless there are so-called 'hidden variables' determining the quantum behavior of particles).

LAS VEGAS, January 5 /PRNewswire/ --

Vanguard Integrity Professionals' CEO, Ronn Bailey, announced today that Vanguard Integrity Professionals will be sponsoring French racer, Eric Vigouroux, in the 2009 Dakar Rally, which runs from January 3 to January 18 through the deserts and mountainous regions in Argentina and Chile. Vanguard Integrity Professionals, which is sponsoring Team Dakar USA, provides security software and consulting to many government agencies and Fortune 500 companies around the world.