Toddlers have a reputation for being stubborn, selfish, and incapable of sharing. But researchers have found that children as young as three actually will show a surprising level of concern for others and an intuitive sense of restorative justice.

Young children prefer to return lost items to their rightful owners, experiments show. If for some reason that isn't an option, young children will still prevent a third party from taking what doesn't belong to them.

What's more, both three- and five-year-old children are just as likely to respond to the needs of another individual--even when that individual is a puppet--as they are to their own.

In 2011–2012, the most recent years for which finalized data were available, public health officials from 32 states and Puerto Rico reported 90 recreational water–associated outbreaks to CDC's Waterborne Disease and Outbreak Surveillance System (WBDOSS) via the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS).

Before there were cells on Earth, simple, tiny catalysts most likely evolved the ability to speed up and synchronize the chemical reactions necessary for life to rise from the primordial soup. But what those catalysts were, how they appeared at the same time, and how they evolved into the two modern superfamilies of enzymes that translate our genetic code have not been understood.

Scientists have provided what they say is the first direct experimental evidence for how primordial proteins developed the ability to accelerate the central chemical reaction necessary to synthesize proteins and thus allow life to arise not long after Earth was created.

To predict how a seasonal influenza epidemic will spread across the United States, one should focus more on the mobility of people than on their geographic proximity, a new study suggests. Their results mark the first time genetic patterns for the spread of flu have been detected at the scale of the continental United States.

"We found that the spread of a flu epidemic is somewhat predictable by looking at transportation data, especially ground commuter networks and H1N1," says Brooke Bozick, who led the study as a graduate student in Emory's Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution program. "Finding these kinds of patterns is the first step in being able to develop targeted surveillance and control strategies."

Researchers have found physical differences in the brains of people who respond emotionally to others' feelings, compared to those who respond more rationally.

The work led by Robert Eres from the Monash University School of Psychological Sciences, pinpointed correlations between grey matter density and cognitive and affective empathy. The study looked at whether people who have more brain cells in certain areas of the brain are better at different types of empathy.

Starfish that reproduce through cloning avoid aging to a greater extent than those that propagate through sexual reproduction, say researchers who investigated the telomere lengths and population genetics of Coscinasterias tenuispina. The telomeres are located at the ends of the chromosomes, and affect the lifespan and health of an individual.