Coastal communities around the world are being increasingly exposed to the hazards of rising sea levels, with global sea levels found to be rising faster over the past two decades than for the bulk of the 20th century.

But managing the impacts of rising seas for some communities is being made more difficult by the actions of governments, homeowners – and even some well-intentioned climate adaptation practitioners.

The winner of a decades-old debate about what scientists call the fadeout effect -- one of the most persistent research mysteries in intelligence and psychological development -- may finally have been decided.

Following a meta-analysis of experimental methods to determine whether or not the benefits of early interactions designed to raise intelligence remain over time, UC Santa Barbara postdoctoral researcher John Protzko found that the positive effects on intelligence actually diminish after a particular intervention ends. Protzko's study marks the first quantitative analysis of the fadeout effect across nearly every known intervention that has attempted to improve early intelligence.

Targeted magnetic pulses to the brain were shown to reduce craving and substance use in cocaine-addicted patients. The results of this pilot study, published in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, suggest that this may become an effective medical treatment for patients with cocaine addiction, although a larger trial is needed to confirm the initial findings.

Turns out dads are also eating for two. A study published December 3 in Cell Metabolism reveals that a man's weight affects the heritable information contained in sperm. The sperm cells of lean and obese men possess different epigenetic marks, notable at gene regions associated with the control of appetite. The comparisons, which included 13 lean men and 10 obese men, offer one biological explanation for why children of obese fathers are themselves more predisposed to obesity.

Scientists have discovered a hungry black hole swallowing a star at the centre of a nearby galaxy.

The supermassive black hole was found to have faint jets of material shooting out from it and helps to confirm scientists' theories about the nature of black holes.

The discovery was published today in the journal Science.

An artist's impression of a star being drawn toward a black hole and destroyed, triggering a jet of plasma made from debris left over from the stars destruction. Credit: Modified from an original image by Amadeo Bachar.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When it comes to emotional health, young couples -- especially women -- do just as well moving in together as they do getting married, according to a new national study.

Using data collected in the 2000s, researchers found that single young women experienced a similar decline in emotional distress when they moved in with a romantic partner or when they went straight to marriage for the first time.

Men experienced a drop in emotional distress only when they went directly to marriage, not when they moved in with a romantic partner for the first time.

But for young adults who moved on from that first relationship, both men and women received similar emotional boosts whether they moved in with their second partner or got married to them.

Several studies have demonstrated that the primary active constituent of cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol induces transient psychosis-like effects in healthy subjects similar to those observed in schizophrenia. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects are not clear.

A new study reports that delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol increases random neural activity, termed neural noise, in the brains of healthy human subjects. The findings suggest that increased neural noise may play a role in the psychosis-like effects of cannabis.