As if pretty people didn't have enough advantages, they may also give us a glance at their reproductive health, according to a paper in the American Journal of Human Biology reveals a link between Body Mass Index (BMI) and the amount of bacteria colonizing noses.

The results show that heavier men harbor more potentially pathogenic species of bacteria in their nose, compared with slimmer, more traditionally attractive men.

Julie Hartup, Mariana Islands Program Leader for the Manta Trust, has caught mantas on Guam in the act of having a party.

Several of Hartup's paddler and free diving friends told her about seeing mantas congregating in an area where surgeonfish were spawning, and they knew the exact date. With the date, Hartup was able to calculate the moon phase - many fish synchronize their spawning with the moon - and using this information she predicted when the spawning event would occur that upcoming year and was there to witness a shoal of spawning surgeonfish accompanied by a fever of mantas.

A mouse's heart beats about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, but a mouse only lives for about a year while an elephant will live to be about 70.

Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger? 

Does cortisol, the stress hormone, cause risk aversion and 'irrational pessimism' in bankers and fund managers during financial crises?

The authors of a paper in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
correlate the fact that traders exhibit risk averse behavior during periods of extreme market volatility – when a crashing market most needs them to take risks, according to academics not responsible for billions of dollars of someone else's money – and that this change in their appetite for risk may be "physiologically-driven", specifically by the body's response to cortisol. They suggest that stress could be an "under-appreciated" cause of market instability.

Older football veterans contend that modern equipment, and its ability to protect players from injury, ironically lead to more of it. Rugby players agree. 

They may be right. A new study finds that modern football helmets do little to protect against hits to the side of the head and the rotational force that is often a dangerous source of brain injury and encephalopathy. 

Policy makers are in constant discussion about a range of climate change mitigation possibilities and among the least understood are geoengineering methods.

The injection of sulfate particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and curb the effects of global warming could pose a severe threat if not maintained indefinitely and also supported by strict reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, write  University of Washington researchers in Environmental Research Letters.