A new study in the April issue of Psychological Science sought to examine whether individuals are motivated to increase their level of anger when they expect to complete a confrontational task, where anger might enhance performance.

Psychologists Maya Tamir and Christopher Mitchell of Boston College, and James Gross of Stanford University told the study participants that they will either play a computer game that is confrontational (“Soldier of Fortune” – a first person shooter game where killing enemies is your primary goal) or one that is not confrontational (“Diner Dash”—a game in which players guide a waitress serving customers). They were then asked to rate the extent to which they would like to engage in different activities before playing the game.

White dwarfs are good timekeepers, and as such, hold clues about the age of the cosmos.

“Once a white dwarf forms, all it does is sit and cool, so we can measure the temperature of a white dwarf, and, using some theoretical understandings, figure out how long it took the star to cool to that temperature, and hence determine how old it is,” says Judi Provencal, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, director of the Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center (DARC), and resident astronomer at Mt. Cuba Astronomical Observatory in Greenville, Del.. “The coolest white dwarf we know of is about 2,500 degrees,” she notes. “This corresponds to an age for the galaxy of about 10 billion years.”

Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public prefers to act locally and nationally on environmental issues and that may be why appeals to global warming are not more successful.

“The survey’s core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues,” said David Konisky, a policy research scholar with the Institute of Public Policy. “People are hesitant to support efforts concerning global issues even though they believe that environmental quality is poorer at the global level than at the local and national level. This is surprising given the media attention that global warming has recently received and reflects the division of opinion about the severity of climate change.”

NASA's Cassini spacecraft tasted and sampled a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn's moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12. Scientists are amazed that this tiny moon is so active, "hot" and brimming with water vapor and organic chemicals.

New heat maps of the surface show higher temperatures than previously known in the south polar region, with hot tracks running the length of giant fissures. Additionally, scientists say the organics "taste and smell" like some of those found in a comet. The jets themselves harmlessly peppered Cassini, exerting measurable torque on the spacecraft, and providing an indirect measure of the plume density.

Tiny prehistoric bones found on an Australian farm have been directly linked to a strange and secretive little animal that lives today in the southern rainforests of South America.

The mystery? They are separated by an ocean and millions of years.

The fossilised ankle and ear bones are those of Australia's earliest known marsupial, Djarthia, a primitive mouse-like creature that lived 55 million years ago. It is a kind of Australian Eve, possibly the mother of all the continent's unusual pouched mammals, such as kangaroos, koalas, possums and wombats.

But a new study has confirmed that Djarthia is also a primitive relative of the small marsupial known as the Monito del Monte – or "little mountain monkey" – from the dense humid forests of Chile and Argentina.

A new study reviewing 75 group-randomized cancer trials over a five-year stretch shows that fewer than half of those studies used appropriate statistical methods to analyze the results. The review suggests that some trials may have reported that interventions to prevent disease or reduce cancer risks were effective when in fact they might not have been.

More than a third of the trials contained statistical analyses that the reviewers considered inappropriate to assess the effects of an intervention being studied. And 88 percent of those studies reported statistically significant intervention effects that, because of analysis flaws, could be misleading to scientists and policymakers, the review authors say.

Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time – something specific, like going down into a dark cellar where you know the Book of the Dead is waiting,or, in a more general sense, trepidation about what the future holds. Some people are gripped by powerful fears when confronted by quite normal everyday situations. For example, sufferers of agoraphobia frequently have panic attacks when caught up in a crowd.

Their blood 'curdles' or 'freezes in their veins' in a very real way, saya a Bonn-based research team, and it leads to increased risk of thrombosis or heart attack

The symptoms can be dramatic: palpitations, sweating, shaking, blind panic or fainting – even leading to death. Another anxiety disorder frequently encountered can be described as social phobia. Those affected fear above all situations in which they become the centre of attention in a group. They begin to stutter or turn red. In order not to avoid embarrassment, social phobia sufferers may become recluses, shying away from human contact and staying at home.