ScienceDaily: Top Science News

Friends know how long you'll live, study finds Posted: 24 Jan 2015 09:08 AM PST Young lovers walking down the aisle may dream of long and healthy lives together, but close friends in the wedding party may have a better sense of whether those wishes will come true, suggests new research on personality and longevity.

Antisocial and non-antisocial siblings share difficulty recognizing emotions Posted: 21 Jan 2015 06:05 PM PST Teenagers with brothers and sisters who exhibit severe antisocial behavior share a similar impairment with their siblings in recognizing emotions, according to a new study. The findings suggest that difficulties in recognizing emotions could be a factor that increases a child's risk of developing conduct disorder -- a condition characterized by pathological aggression and antisocial behavior.

On the ups and downs of the seemingly idle brain Posted: 20 Jan 2015 03:59 PM PST Even when it seems not to be doing much, the brain maintains a baseline of activity in the form of up and down states of bustle and quiet. To accomplish this seemingly simple cycle, it maintains a complex balance between the activity of many excitatory and inhibitory cells, scientists report.

Harnessing data from nature's great evolutionary experiment Posted: 20 Jan 2015 01:03 PM PST A new computational method has been developed to identify which letters in the human genome are functionally important . Their computer program, called fitCons, harnesses the power of evolution, comparing changes in DNA letters across not just related species, but also between multiple individuals in a single species. The results provide a surprising picture of just how little of our genome has been 'conserved' by nature.