After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome. The effort revealed evidence that shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some of them interbred with Neanderthals, leaving bits of Neanderthal DNA sequences scattered through the genomes of present-day non-Africans.

"We can now say that, in all probability, there was gene flow from Neanderthals to modern humans," said the paper's first author, Richard E. (Ed) Green of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The results of the study appear this week in Science.

A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research has found that shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of unplanned items, and most have a fairly accurate estimate as to how much they will spend on them. The authors use the term "in-store slack" to describe the room shoppers leave in their budget for unplanned purchases.

The researchers conducted a field study at several grocery stores in Texas. Shoppers were asked what they intended to purchase, how much they expected to spend on the planned items, and how much they intended to spend total. After shopping, participants provided their receipts and answered questions about themselves and their purchases. More than 75 percent of the participants included room in their mental budgets for unplanned purchases.

The ESA's Herschel infrared space observatory is capturing new images from thousands of distant galaxies as they furiously build stars and beautiful star-forming clouds. The photographic evidence reveals previously hidden details and challenges old ideas about of star formation.

The new findings were presented today during a major scientific symposium held at the European Space Agency (ESA).

Teenage girls are more willing than boys to communicate with their parents when it comes to talking about most dating issues, and both sexes generally prefer to talk to their mothers, according to a new study in the Journal of Adolescence.

The new study also found, however, that girls and boys are equally close-mouthed about issues involving sex and what they do with their dates while unsupervised. And in this case, teens were no more eager to talk to their mothers than they were their fathers. Results showed that the amount of information parents hear from their teenagers about dating depend on a variety of matters, including age, gender, and what aspect of dating the topic involves.

A compound in dark chocolate called epicatechin may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage.

After inducing an ischemic stroke in mice, John Hopkins scientists found that mice who had been fed a single modest dose of epicatechin suffered significantly less brain damage than the ones that had not been given the compound.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

Wild Wells

Caution: satire alert!


The current slight mishap in the Gulf of Mexico is just another oil spill.

So says BP and the media, and we all know we can trust them to be honest and ethical.


The Gulf disaster is not an oil spill - it's a wild well.  I hate weasel words¹.