Losing virginity can improve your self-image,  according to Penn State researchers - if you are a college-age male.  On average, college-age males become more satisfied with their appearance after first intercourse while college-age females become less satisfied.

Overall the researchers found that women became happier with their physical appearance from first to fourth year in college, and men became less satisfied with their appearance over the same time period. However, the researchers found the opposite directly after students had sex for the first time; males were more satisfied with their appearance and females were less satisfied.   

In Australia, babies born since 1971 have had drops of blood taken, which are then tested for a variety of genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis. 

It has been an effective health check, according to Dr. Diana Bowman from the Melbourne School of Population Health, but because there are no laws which define the ownership, storage and use of those blood drops, it could threaten public trust in newborn screening (NBS) programs in Australia. The tests and what is done with the blood afterwards raises many legal questions.

The world's largest plant to turn natural gas into cleaner-burning fuels and lubricants took a major step closer to production today when gas began flowing from a giant offshore field. 

Pearl GTL will process around 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent over its lifetime from the world's largest single gas field, the North Field in the Arabian Gulf. The field stretches from Qatar's coast and contains more than 900 trillion cubic feet of gas, equivalent to 150 billion barrels of oil, or over 10% of worldwide gas resources.

Tree islands, patches of high, dry ground a meter high that dot the marshes of the Florida Everglades, are elevated enough to allow trees to grow and provide a nesting site for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife.

And those critters may have anthropogenic garbage left by early man to thank for it.   Garbage mounds left by prehistoric humans might have driven the formation of many of those  Everglades' tree islands, distinctive havens of exceptional ecological richness in the sprawling marsh that are today threatened by human development.