A simple test using a raisin can predict how well a toddler will perform academically at age eight, according to a new paper. Using just the piece of dried fruit and a plastic cup they have devised a test based on how long a 20-month old child can wait to pick up a raisin in front of them. 

ANN ARBOR--Coffee rust has ravaged Latin American plantations for several years, leading to reductions in annual coffee production of up to 30 percent in some countries and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers in the region.

A new study by University of Michigan researchers suggests that the coffee plants themselves may hold biological weapons that could someday be harnessed in the fight against the coffee rust fungal pathogen.

Those potential weapons are themselves fungi, a surprisingly diverse community of more than 300 species of them--including 15 likely fungal parasites--living on coffee leaves, within or alongside the yellow blotches that mark coffee rust lesions.

The notion that older people are happier than younger people is being challenged following a recent study led by a University of Bradford lecturer.

In fact it suggests that people get more depressed from age 65 onwards.

The study, led by psychology lecturer Dr Helena Chui and recently published in the international journal Psychology and Aging, builds on a 15-year project observing over 2,000 older Australians living in the Adelaide area.

Previous studies have shown an increase in depressive symptoms with age but only until the age of 85. This is the first study to examine the issue beyond that age.

The Internet of Things, IoT, the cloud, big data...buzzwords for the modern age. But, asks Won Kim, Jaehyuk Choi and colleagues in the Department of Software at Gachon University, in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea: Is the IoT actually anything new and how does it work? Writing in the International Journal of Web and Grid Services, the team offer some answers and a high-level view of the IoT from the perspective of its architecture.

Most animals reproduce by laying eggs. As the embryo develops, its feeds on the egg yolk. No egg yolk, no offspring, then? Not always. Biologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, have discovered an exception to the rule: the eggs of nematodes (roundworms) can also hatch without egg yolk. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

Wild birds will sacrifice access to food in order to stay close to their partner over the winter, according to a study by Oxford University researchers.

Scientists from the Department of Zoology found that mated pairs of great tits chose to prioritise their relationships over sustenance in a novel experiment that prevented couples from foraging in the same location.

This also meant birds ended up spending a significant amount of time with their partners' flock-mates.

And, over time, the pairs may even have learned to cooperate to allow each other to scrounge from off-limits feeding stations.