Princeton scientists say they may have discovered the oldest fossils of animal bodies; sponge-like creatures that were living in ocean reefs 650 million years ago. The shelly fossils, found beneath a 635 million-year-old glacial deposit in South Australia, would represent the earliest evidence of animal body forms in the current fossil record by at least 70 million years.

Is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) too often confused with immaturity or just young age?  It may be, according to new research by a Michigan State University economist published in the Journal of Health Economics.

ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder for kids in the United States, with at least 4.5 million diagnoses among children under age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Science has a long history of being multinational and has long been a way to bridge cultures and balance the public good with private gain.    Science, being about excellence, has zero interest in race, creed or religion.  Maybe it has too much concern with politics and policies in some corners but even that is a minor blemish.  The fact is, cooperation works.

Cooperation comes naturally to science, as the big problems science is being called upon to address, like the future of energy, climate change and new pandemics, respect no boundaries. The days of science as a solitary thing are good.  Modern science at its best is now a group effort, inclusive and open.  Social even.

Charity, What Does It Mean? - Sadaqa, Matlab Kya He?


An essay on the meaning of the term 'charity', with scientific, philosophical and historical discussion.

"There is no person who does not have the obligation of doing charity every day that the sun rises."
Prophet Mohammed

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."
Saint Paul

All people in all lands share a common tool: language.

Donald Light, professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, says the pharmaceutical industry is a market for 'lemons' -  a market in which the seller knows much more than the buyer about the product and can profit from selling products less effective and even less safe than consumers are led to believe.

Talking at the meeting of the American Sociological Association, he said three reasons why the pharmaceutical market produces "lemons" are: Having companies in charge of testing new drugs, providing firewalls of legal protection behind which information about harms or effectiveness can be hidden, and the relatively low bar set for drug efficacy in order for a new drug to be approved.

Being married has been associated with improving health but a new study suggests that having that long-term bond alters hormones in a way that reduces stress - but you don't need to buy a ring just yet; unmarried people in a committed relationship show the same reduced responses to stress,  said Dario Maestripieri, Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago and lead author of a new study in Stress. 

A new Rice University study's side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models to determine when 'mitochondrial Eve'(mtEve), the maternal ancestor of all living humans, lived uses a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth - and it won't be without some controversy.

Mitochondrial Eve studies are an example of how scientists probe the genetic past to learn more about mutation, selection and other genetic processes that play key roles in disease but deterministic models may not be enough, says the new study.     Statisticians to the rescue.

Children are natural psychologists and by the time they reach preschool they understand that other people have desires, preferences, beliefs, and emotions too.

Exactly how they learn this isn't clear but a new study says that one way children figure out another's preferences is by using a topic you'd think they won't formally encounter until college: statistics. 

In one experiment, children aged 3 and 4 saw a puppet named "Squirrel" remove five toys of the same type from a container full of toys and happily play with them. Across the children, the toys that Squirrel removed were the same (for example, all five were blue flowers).

What varied, however, were the contents of the container.

Welcome to my first blog entry ever! That the Big Bang is the start of the universe, the mysterious “point of creation”, is stated often still today, even by prominent physicists. It is also not true.

The Big Bang is what you get when you back-extrapolate the today visible expansion of the universe into the past. One gets to the point where there is the so called “reheating” after inflation. The result of reheating is the Big Bang, a hot and dense state for sure, but it is not thought to be the beginning anymore.

The Big Bang is a set of conditions of an extremely hot, dense, expanding Universe that exists after the end of inflation.

The Open Source movement has been an integral part of software development for many years now, and it is starting to explode into the science world. The latest project might even transform brain science communication and understanding to a new level as the new Whole Brain Catalog is now available for anyone to access.