Young people who want to be better appreciated and respected within their group are willing to be violent, says a new study that looked in depth at the social relationships between male and female teenagers, relational violence, and psycho-social adjustment factors such as loneliness and self-esteem.

Published recently in Psicothema,  the study focused on the relationship between relational violence between teenagers, their social adjustment and their reputation, in order to show how young people who long for high "reputation status" are more likely to use relational violence as a tool for achieving this objective.

I think this may be the best pop-sci treatment of the jumbo squid invasion that I've seen yet. Go, Christian Science Monitor!

For example, most invasion articles don't take the time to explain the nuanced history of the squid's presence in California, but here we learn:

When scientists dug through historical records, they discovered that the squid's northward advance wasn't entirely unprecedented. There were accounts from the 1930s of the creatures in Monterey Bay. But never in numbers comparable to what scientists observed now – schools many hundreds strong. And no one had ever seen them as far north as Alaska.

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em.” It’s an old adage that every experienced poker player knows. The main goal is to play the game successfully and maximize your profits.
            But what if that game is life, and cruel, impersonal genetics is the dealer? There is no luxury of folding your hand and waiting for the next one. People with genetic diseases need to find a way to play the hand that they’re dealt. Fortunately, new scientific research is helping explain the rules of the game, especially for the genetic disease called Huntington’s Disease (HD).

Aside from Earth, Saturn's largest moon Titan looks to be the only place in the solar system with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. But that's not the only similarity our home and Titan share. A team of planetary astronomers recently announced that the two share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog.

The team discussed their findings in a recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters as well as in a presentation at the American Geophysical Union's 2009 Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

In order to benefit from their natural resources, states need fewer regulations, lower taxes, and stronger private property rights, according to a new study by a Florida State University economist. The study offers an empirical analysis weighing the economic growth rates of resource-dependent states against the Economic Freedom of North America index (which operates on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the freest) to determine the level of economic freedom required for states to benefit from natural resource development.

Research suggests that in regions lacking policies consistent with free markets, private-property rights and a stable and fair legal system, natural resource dependence can weaken economic growth — a phenomenon known as the "resource curse."

According to an upcoming study in the March Issue of Alcoholism: Clinical&Experimental Research, alcohol and marijuana use may be explained by the same genetic factors, lending support to the notion that there are common mechanisms underlying all addictions, the authors say.

Researchers examined 6,257 individuals (2,761 complete twin pairs and 735 singletons) listed in the Australian Twin Registry, 24 to 36 years of age.  Alcohol and marijuana use histories were gathered in telephone diagnostic interviews and used to derive levels of alcohol consumption, frequency of marijuana use, and DSM-IV alcohol and cannabis dependence symptoms.