Everyone claims to care about diversity, individualism and tolerance. Very few people (R.I.P. Pete Seeger) really do. Instead, they want their beliefs affirmed and they want to demonize the opposition at every turn

The remoteness and anonymity of social media makes aggressive and cultural political posturing easy - that is why people  who think the majority of their friends have differing opinions than their own engage less on Facebook. Politically active tend to stick in their own circles, ignore those on the other side and become more polarized.   

Why were there old, enormously massive galaxies no longer forming new stars in the very early universe?

The first stars already emerged in the very early universe about 200 million years after the Big Bang. Gas is the raw material used to form stars and giant clouds of hydrogen and helium and dust (and whatever "dark matter" will eventually be) contracted and eventually the gas became so compact that the pressure heated the matter so that glowing gas balls were formed and new stars were born. 

What separates us from other primates?

The psychologists behind a new MRI study say it is key components in the ventrolateral frontal cortex area of the human brain, and how these components were connected up with other brain areas. When compared to equivalent MRI data from 25 macaque monkeys, the authors determined that it is unlike anything in the brains of some of our closest evolutionary relatives. 

Military veterans exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange may be at higher risk for certain types of skin cancer, suggests a new report.

Agent Orange is a defoliant famously used by the British military during the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. military period of the Vietnam War.

The study adds to existing evidence that risk of non-melanotic invasive skin cancer (NMISC) is increased even four decades after Agent Orange exposure, with at least some exposed veterans having unusually aggressive non-melanoma skin cancers. 

Skin Cancers Present in About Half of Vets Exposed to Agent Orange

If you can't get by without caffeine and won't give it up even if you have a condition that may be impacted by it, such as pregnancy, a heart condition, or a bleeding disorder, you may have "Caffeine Use Disorder." 

Caffeine is the most commonly used drug in the world, according to the authors of a new paper, and is found in everything from coffee and soda, to OTC pain relievers and a bunch of stuff with some form of the word "energy" on the label, but they say health professionals have been slow to characterize problematic caffeine use and acknowledge that some cases may call for treatment. 

So if you joke that "Caffeine isn't a drug, it's a vitamin" you may have a condition.  

 A new whole-body, diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan could improve care for myeloma  - cancer of the white blood (plasma) cells, one of the most common forms of blood cancer - and reduce reliance on bone marrow biopsies, which can be painful for patients and often fail to show doctors how far the disease has spread. 

Whole-body, diffusion-weighted MRI scans showed the spread of cancer throughout the bone marrow of patients with myeloma more accurately than standard tests. The scans also showed whether the patients were responding to cancer treatments.