We all know that children who are popular do well socially. A new study has found that teenagers who feel good about themselves and are comfortable with their peers can also be socially successful without being popular in the traditional sense.

These findings come from researchers at the University of Virginia and are published in the May/June 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.

Researchers studied 164 adolescents from racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse backgrounds. The teens were interviewed at age 13 and then again at 14. The researchers also interviewed the adolescents’ same-sex close friends.

A study investigating aging in mice has found that hormonal changes that occur when mice eat significantly less may help explain an already established phenomenon: a low calorie diet can extend the lifespan of rodents, a benefit that even regular exercise does not achieve.

“We know that being lean rather than obese is protective from many diseases, but key rodent studies tell us that being lean from eating less, as opposed to exercising more, has greater benefit for living longer. This study was designed to understand better why that is,” said Derek M. Huffman, the study’s lead author.

The study applies only to rodents, which are different in some key ways from humans, cautions Huffman.

Common Sense 101: if benefits outweigh the costs, generally people will opt in to whatever action is under consideration. If you can prevent or reduce your chance of death from cancer by early screenings at a nominal fee, you will probably get screened. Now throw a twist into the equation. Say that screening is only 50 percent effective at catching early cancer. On the benefit side, screening will still prevent or reduce cancer. On the cost side, you may not catch a tumor; you may be exposing yourself to harmful radiation (which ironically could contribute to the cancer you’re trying to prevent), emotional stress from false positives and possible physical harm from false negatives; and you’re spending money on a service that only works half the time. (Using the same idea, if your airbag only worked in 50 percent of accidents, would you pay for it to be installed in your car, or would you demand that auto manufacturers developed an airbag with 100 percent efficiency?)

I’m reading a delightful history of chess, The Immortal Game, by David Shenk, and got to the chapter dealing with the dark side of chess: the fact that a small but significant number of top players throughout history have gone off the deep end -- including the famous American world champion Bobby Fisher.

As is usual with correlations (playing chess <=> your brain goes bonk), it is not clear which way the causality goes, if at all. It could be that playing chess at the highest levels affects the mind in negative ways; it may be that abnormal minds are more likely than others to be attracted by the game; or it could simply be that the correlation is spurious, i.e. non-causal.

Shenk does not take sides on this debate, but he does report the pronouncements of a number of Freudian psychoanalysts on the matter. For instance, Ernest Jones (Freud’s biographer and protege), confidently stated that “It is plain that the unconscious motive activating [chess] players is not the mere love of pugnacity characteristic of all competitive games, but the grimmer one of father murder.” What?? That’s right, it’s the good ‘ol Oedipus complex -- itself rooted in the all-encompassing Freudian explanation for human behavior, sex drives -- that pushes players to protect their Queen (=mother) and checkmate the King (=father). Here is some more nonsense from Jones (p. 147 of Shenk’s):

Patients suffering from “hemineglect” ignore things presented to their left side. However, sometimes these ignored stimuli may be processed without awareness.

In a paper published in Cortex Issue 6, Sackur and colleagues reported that unconscious processing in hemineglect is not limited to low level features of the stimuli. They showed that the brain may extract the meaning of symbols that the patient has not consciously perceived. Thus, digits or number words presented on the left side were not detected by hemineglect patients, but still their numerical value influenced the way these patients performed on a numerical task presented shortly thereafter.

If you take a top-of-the-line express train in America, nothing more modern than an electric shaver can even be plugged in much less have any practical use while onboard. 10 times as long as plane flights, more expensive and no computer use? Why aren't trains more popular here again?

Not the case in Europe. They are using technology from the European Space Agency to allow internet addicts to get their fix even in mass transit. Thalys is launching full commercial operations for a wireless broadband internet service on board high speed trains, the result of their project "Broadband to trains."

It enables the international railway company to deliver true broadband internet access to passengers travelling between Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne.

A team of Canadian researchers has completed a massive survey of the network of protein complexes that orchestrate the fundamental processes of life. In the online edition of the journal Science, researchers from the Université de Montréal describe protein complexes and networks of complexes never before observed – including two implicated in the normal mechanisms by which cells divide and proliferate and another that controls recycling of the molecular building blocks of life called autophagy.

These processes are implicated in diseases such as cancers and autophagy has recently been shown to be involved in degenerative neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases. The discovery will fill gaps in basic knowledge about the workings and evolutionary origins of the living cell and provide new avenues to explore in linking these fundamental processes to human disease.

Most teenagers wouldn’t have a clue what agarose gel electrophoresis means, but middle school student Andrew Trigiano does - and as a result he's the youngest author to ever publish in the American Society of Horticultural Science’s journal HortTechnology.

One of the most frequently used tools in biochemistry and biotechnology, agarose gel electrophoresis is a common forensic technique often used in genetic or DNA fingerprinting. The procedure is achieved by moving negatively charged nucleic acid molecules through a gelatinous substance known as agarose by using an electric field.

It's time to think about a return to the moon. Thanks to being able to stand on the shoulders of giants, we know where to watch for problems - even in the dust. Dust could be more than a housekeeping issue for astronauts who visit the moon because the health of astronauts may depend on the amount of exposure they have to the tiny particles.

During the Apollo lunar missions in the late 1960s and 1970s, the clingy particles were easily transported via spacesuits into the lunar lander following moonwalks. The amount of dust inside the vehicle was so great some astronauts reported they could smell it.

Even though there were no known illnesses due to exposure, lunar dust is a concern because it has properties comparable to that of fresh-fractured quartz, a highly toxic substance. However, the Apollo flights lasted only a few days. During the proposed return to the moon, astronauts will be exposed to lunar dust for longer periods of time, including missions that could last months.

A type of plastic that exhibits metallic and semi-conductor-like properties will be described in an inaugural doctoral lecture at the University of Leicester on Wednesday June 4th(*).

In his lecture, Dr. M. A. Mohamoud will discuss a novel class of materials called “conducting polymers.” Conducting polymers are smart materials that can mimic biological systems and can be used as components of artificial nerves, electronic noses/tongues, drug-release-and-delivering systems, and artificial muscles.

They can also be used as energy storage devices in battery technology, electrochromic display devices (in smart window technology and light emitting diodes), and biological sensor technology.