You may know of people who ridicule lottery players because the odds are so great and, it would seem, they can't do simple math.    But most people don't ridicule stock market investors even though the same circumstances - a lack of real knowledge and a field of competitors doing the same thing - make it less likely they will be successful unless fortune makes their decisions align with people who know what they are doing.

The riskier investors tend to act, the more socioeconomic characteristics they share with people who play state lotteries and,  just like the lottery, returns on average are lower for those who invest this way in the stock market, research from The University of Texas at Austin shows.
 

Ancient footprints show that some of the earliest humans walked like us and did so on anatomically modern feet 1.5 million years ago. 

This anatomical interpretation is the conclusion of Rutgers Professor John W.K. Harris and an international team of colleagues. Harris is a professor of anthropology, a member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies and director of the Koobi Fora Field Project.

Harris is also director of the field school which Rutgers University operates in collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya. From 2006 to 2008, the field school group of mostly American undergraduates, including Rutgers students, excavated the site yielding the footprints. 
 

Like it or not, your mouth is home to a thriving community of microbial life. More than 600 different species of bacteria reside in this "microbiome," yet everyone hosts a unique set of bugs, and this could have important implications for health and disease. In a new stud, scientists have performed the first global survey of salivary microbes, finding that the oral microbiome of your neighbor is just as different from yours as someone across the globe.

BILLERICA, Massachusetts, February 25 /PRNewswire/ --

- US$5000 prize to develop best indexing system for main memory data

Vertica Systems announced today that it is sponsoring the first annual Special Interest Group on Management of Data (SIGMOD) programming contest. Students at a degree-granting institution have until March 15, 2009, to submit a prototype for consideration as a finalist to participate in a bake-off at this year's Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) SIGMOD conference in Providence, Rhode Island. Vertica, in conjunction with a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and additional funding from Microsoft Corp., is sponsoring the contest to generate better ideas in transactional indexing systems for main memory data.

WARSAW, Poland, February 25 /PRNewswire/ --

- New DKMS Poland Office Expands Coty-DKMS: Linked Against Leukemia Partnership

Coty Inc., a leader in the global beauty industry and the world's largest fragrance company, and DKMS, the world's largest non-profit bone marrow donor center, are pleased to announce the opening of DKMS Polska, the expansion of the Coty-DKMS: Linked Against Leukemia global initiative.

LONDON, February 25 /PRNewswire/ -- LastPost.com, the iconic UK remembrance website, announces a new email and letters service.

Users can send up to 10 free emails immediately after death and store letters for delivery many years later. Letters can be sent to coincide with anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, births, graduations, and other special days.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 1 person dies every 30 seconds in a car crash, says Andrew Campbell, the Founder and CEO of LastPost.com, not having an opportunity to say goodbye makes the loss of a loved one even harder to bear. Our service provides peace of mind for a sender and support and encouragement for recipients.

WOODCLIFF LAKE, New Jersey, February 25 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Architecture Delivers Unparalleled Performance, Instant Availability and Significant Reduction in Storage

LONDON, February 25 /PRNewswire/ --

SunGard's Ambit Risk Performance solution has been voted as the number one asset and liability management (ALM) solution for the second straight year in Risk magazine's annual technology rankings. SunGard's Ambit solution also scored highly in several other categories, including integrated market and credit risk management, credit risk management, and risk management -- Basel II and International Accounting Standards (IAS) compliance.