Do you feel sadder watching a documentary about war or a drama about a young person dying of cancer?

If you poll most people, they will say there are stronger emotional reactions when stories are based on true events rather than fiction, but a new analysis in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that is not so.

How did our ancestors raise so many kids, while modern parents struggle with the fast pace of life?

It's unclear, but to help solve such First World problems, many businesses now offer traditional caregiving services ranging from planning birthday parties to teaching children how to ride a bike. According to a new paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, by outsourcing traditional parental duties, modern-day parents feel they are ultimately protecting parenthood.

To determine the role of the marketplace in modern-day parenting, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with participants who varied in parenting views, practices, and challenges ranging from income to social class and the availability of help from immediate family.

In the world of mixed environmental and social problems, such as global warming policy, there is a tug of war between social authoritarian forces that want top-down laws and regulations and behavior control, and a grass roots strategy that believes awareness and people making better consumption choices will be superior.

A paper in the Journal of Consumer Research is evidence for the social authoritarians. It finds that responsible consumption shifts the burden for solving global problems from governments to consumers and ultimately benefits corporations more than society.

The world's fastest sprinters have unique gait features that account for some of their ability to achieve fast speeds, according to two new studies which indicate that the secret to elite sprinting speeds lies in the distinct limb dynamics sprinters use to elevate ground forces upon foot-ground impact.

The new findings address a major performance question that has remained unanswered for more than a decade.

Some epidemiological papers have linked an increased risk of autism in children with women who took antidepressants during pregnancy. Suggestions have been that antidepressants or severe maternal depression cause autism.

In a Molecular Psychiatry paper, investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital report that while a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder was more common in the children of mothers prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy than in those with no prenatal exposure, when the severity of the mother's depression was accounted for, that increased risk was no longer statistically significant.

A new analysis suggests the planet can produce much more land-plant biomass – the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts – than previous estimates showed.

In modeling, earth scientists tend to make a lot of simplifying assumptions, and one of those assumptions has been that biomass of now will be biomass of the future, which is in defiance of both science and history.

A new paper in Environmental Science and Technology recalculates the limit of terrestrial plant productivity and finds that it is much higher than many current estimates allow.