How did our ancestors raise so many kids, while modern parents struggle with the fast pace of life?

It's unclear, but to help solve such First World problems, many businesses now offer traditional caregiving services ranging from planning birthday parties to teaching children how to ride a bike. According to a new paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, by outsourcing traditional parental duties, modern-day parents feel they are ultimately protecting parenthood.

To determine the role of the marketplace in modern-day parenting, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with participants who varied in parenting views, practices, and challenges ranging from income to social class and the availability of help from immediate family.

In the world of mixed environmental and social problems, such as global warming policy, there is a tug of war between social authoritarian forces that want top-down laws and regulations and behavior control, and a grass roots strategy that believes awareness and people making better consumption choices will be superior.

A paper in the Journal of Consumer Research is evidence for the social authoritarians. It finds that responsible consumption shifts the burden for solving global problems from governments to consumers and ultimately benefits corporations more than society.

The world's fastest sprinters have unique gait features that account for some of their ability to achieve fast speeds, according to two new studies which indicate that the secret to elite sprinting speeds lies in the distinct limb dynamics sprinters use to elevate ground forces upon foot-ground impact.

The new findings address a major performance question that has remained unanswered for more than a decade.

Some epidemiological papers have linked an increased risk of autism in children with women who took antidepressants during pregnancy. Suggestions have been that antidepressants or severe maternal depression cause autism.

In a Molecular Psychiatry paper, investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital report that while a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder was more common in the children of mothers prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy than in those with no prenatal exposure, when the severity of the mother's depression was accounted for, that increased risk was no longer statistically significant.

A new analysis suggests the planet can produce much more land-plant biomass – the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts – than previous estimates showed.

In modeling, earth scientists tend to make a lot of simplifying assumptions, and one of those assumptions has been that biomass of now will be biomass of the future, which is in defiance of both science and history.

A new paper in Environmental Science and Technology recalculates the limit of terrestrial plant productivity and finds that it is much higher than many current estimates allow.

Wave-particle duality suggests that elementary particles, like electrons and photons, cannot be completely described as either waves or particles, because they exhibit both types of properties. In the double-slit experiment, observing a photon pass through one of the two slits is an example of a particle-like property; a particle can only pass through one or the other. When two waves converge to form an interference pattern, the photon must have passed through both slits simultaneously—a wave-like property.

Trying to measure both types of properties simultaneously is problematic because the interference pattern disappears as soon as it is known through which slit the photon has passed. 

Researchers recently set out to determine the prevalence and incidence of autoimmune diseases in people with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. 

Patients (N=2342) treated at the Eating Disorder Unit of Helsinki University Central Hospital between 1995 and 2010 were compared with general population controls (N=9368) matched for the age, sex and place of residence. Data of 30 autoimmune diseases were from the Hospital Discharge Register from 1969 to 2010.

Current x-ray examinations capture only 20 percent of cases but there is a better way, according to Norwegian researchers. With modern ultra low-dose CT, that number climbs to 90 percent.

In lung cancer, the prognosis is poor. In Norway, 85 percent of lung cancer patients die within five years, the authors say, and what is unfortunate is that the tumor can grow for a long time before even being detected. Most patients have their first diagnosis made by x-ray imaging.

Yet no one had investigated how well x-ray images function when it comes to detecting lung cancer and other diseases of the chest region, the authors of a new study say.

In a closed-loop control approach to managing type 1 diabetes, glucose sensors placed under the skin continuously monitor blood sugar levels, triggering the release of insulin from an implantable insulin pump as needed.

The aim of this closed-loop insulin delivery system is improved control of blood glucose levels throughout the day and night. But a new study in adults and adolescents found that mean blood glucose levels remained at safe levels 53-82% of the time, according to the results published in Diabetes Technology&Therapeutics. 

A Liberian nurse disinfects a looted mattress taken from an elementary school that was used as an Ebola isolation unit in West Point, Monrovia, Liberia. AHMED JALLANZO/EPA

By Ian Kerridge, University of Sydney and Lyn Gilbert, University of Sydney