We're not joking; a sense of humor helps to keep people healthy and increases their chances of at least reaching retirement age, though after the age of 70 the health benefits of humor decrease, say researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

The study has just been published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine and was composed of an examination of records from 53,500 individuals after after seven years. The study was based on a comprehensive database from the second Nor-Trøndelag Health Study, called HUNT 2, which is comprised of health histories and blood samples collected in 1995-1997 from more than 70,000 residents of a county in mid-Norway.

A positive effect

An international research team has gathered a database of the oldest people in the world - those who lived beyond their 110th birthday, and while searching for these 'supercentenarians' and trying to find accurate documentation of their age, they also documented the personal histories and wisdom of those who long-lived folks.

The result; a book called "Supercentenarians" and  coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock/Germany.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), only about 160 000 light-years from our own Milky Way, so very close on a cosmic scale, is one of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way and in this spectacular new image from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, a celestial menagerie of different objects and phenomena in part of the LMC is on display, ranging from vast globular clusters to the remains left by brilliant supernovae explosions. This fascinating observation provides data for a wide variety of research projects unraveling the life and death of stars and the evolution of galaxies.

For solar cells to be viable (not relying on government mandates and subsidies) costs have to come down and efficiency must go up.   Buried channel solar cells (BCSC) are one possible group of high efficiency devices.

Characteristic for buried channel solar cells are that the front contacts (lighted surface) are placed in deep trenches, formed in silicon crystal. The idea, is to be minimized the width of the contact bars, by the increasing the contact thickness in deep. In this way the formed element has lower shadowing effect and additionally the contact resistance is decreased. The collected efficiency of the created by the light excess carriers is increased too.

Scientists from Tübingen say they have revealed an evolutionary dilemma - plants that are more resistant to disease grow more slowly and are less competitive than susceptible relatives when enemies are rare.

Individuals of one and the same plant species often differ greatly in their ability to resist pathogens. While one rose succumbs to bacterial infection, its neighbor thrives. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Germany say they have tracked down an explanation for this common phenomenon. Their conclusion: disease resistance can incur high costs. Especially resistant plants of mouse ear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) produce fewer and small leaves, and have a competitive disadvantage in the absence of enemies.

The Yangtze River in China is 40 million years older than was previously thought, according to new research.

A study of minerals reveals that the Yangtze River began to cut the Three Gorges area around 45 million years ago, making it much older than previously believed. 

The Yangtze River, the third-longest river in the world, has played a central role in the development of Chinese culture, and the Three Gorges, which separate the Sichuan Basin in the west from the lowlands of central and eastern China to the east, have particular historical, cultural, and geomorphological significance.