Gibbons are small, tree-living apes from Southeast Asia, many species of which are endangered. They are part of the same superfamily as humans and great apes, but sit on the divide between Old-World monkeys and the great apes.

These creatures have several distinctive traits, such as an unusually large number of chromosomal rearrangements, and different numbers of chromosomes are seen in individual species.

Researchers recently completed analysis of the mobile elements in the gibbon genome. This included the characterization of the mobile genetic element called LAVA. LAVA is made up of pieces of known jumping genes and named after its main components: L1, Alu, and the VA section of SVA mobile elements.

By tracking seismic shifts, researchers say they may be able to predict a major quake off the coast of Istanbul.

When a segment of a major fault line goes quiet, it can mean one of two things - an inactive “seismic gap” which is the result of two tectonic plates placidly gliding past each other, or the seismic gap may be filled by an earthquake after quietly building tension for decades.

Researchers say they have found evidence for both types of behavior on different segments of the North Anatolian Fault — one of the most energetic earthquake zones in the world. The fault, similar in scale to California’s San Andreas Fault, stretches for about 745 miles across northern Turkey and into the Aegean Sea.

Males get more diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorders than females and it may be related to changes in the brain's estrogen signaling, writes a paper in Molecular Autism.

 Autism Spectrum Disorders are a broad category of diagnoses that include brain development and assessments of impaired social interaction, along verbal and non-verbal communication and restricted and repetitive behavior. The disorders may have a genetic basis and are around four times more common in men than in women. They have been associated with higher levels of the sex hormone testosterone, but whether there is a relationship between the disorders and estrogen signaling was not known. 

It's uncommon for there to be reanalyses of data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) - once a product has failed, it isn't smart to keep putting more money into it.

The Milky Way galaxy is orbited by more than 150 globular star clusters - balls of hundreds of thousands of old stars dating back to the formation of the galaxy. In the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), the French comet hunter Charles Messier found one such cluster and it was given the designation Messier 54.

For more than two hundred years after its discovery Messier 54, was thought to be similar to the other Milky Way globulars, but in 1994 astronomers determined that it was actually associated with a separate galaxy — the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. It was found to be at a distance of around 90,000 light-years, more than three times as far from Earth as the galactic center.

Like most young people, the first job is not the best job and they will often leave when a better opportunity comes along. 

There is strong demand for nurses so it's no surprise that there is turnover among young ones. Once they prove they can do the job, hospitals and practices are going to recruit them and pay higher salaries, because they are not paying training costs.

A study in the current issue of Policy, Politics&Nursing Practice reveals that an estimated 17.5 percent of newly-licensed RNs leave their first nursing job within the first year and one in three (33.5%) leave within two years. The scholars found that turnover for this group is lower at hospitals than at other health care settings.

African American women and their female children have the highest obesity prevalence of any demographic group in the United States, and they are also most likely to underestimate their body weight, according to a paper from Rush University Medical Center.

The authors say cultural norms for body size may prevent awareness among many African American women about the potential risks of obesity and the benefits of weight loss.

Before they reach young adulthood, many children in the United States will experience their parents separating, divorcing, finding another partner or getting remarried. 

When families change structure, it is more common for children to exhibit behavior problems, such as aggression and defiance, and a new psychology paper say that behavior problems in children increased in high-income families most, and that children's age also played a part in their likelihood of having behavior problems.

Moving from a single-parent family into a step-parent family then improved children's behavior in higher-income families but not in lower-income families.

A Ripper murder, Illustrated Police news, c. 1888.

By Rosalind Crone, The Open University

A panic erupted in Britain 126 years ago.

At daybreak on Saturday September 8, the mutilated body of Annie Chapman, a prostitute, had been found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields.

Her injuries and the removal of some of her abdominal organs led investigators and journalists to link Chapman’s murder with that of another woman, only a week earlier.

Image credit: Pslawinski via Wikimedia | http://bit.ly/1lzJKDE

By Chris Gorski, Inside Science

(Inside Science) -- Xenon is one of the so-called noble gases. It's odorless, colorless and a loner. It very rarely combines with other atoms, or even itself, to form molecules. Like helium, neon, argon, krypton and radon, it's kind of a wallflower that rests on the far right of the periodic table.

Unlike most of those others, though, recent reports show that xenon might improve athletic performance in endurance sports. The gas may also help erase traumatic memories.