The Natural History of the Only Child
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As people get richer, families get smaller, and scientists think it's because wealthy parents believe quality is more important that quantity. Commentary by Carl Zimmer
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Whether your brothers or sisters had early heart disease is the best predictor of your own heart health, US research suggests. Sibling history predicted heart disease risk better than parental history or traditional
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TUESDAY, Oct. 12 (HealthDayNews) -- Children with brothers or sisters have a lower asthma risk than children with no siblings, says a Canadian study in the October issue of the journal Chest.
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Recently, a polar bear cub was rejected by its mother in a German zoo.  Had this happened in the wild, the cub would have been left to fend for itself, and would quite likely have died.  In this case, however, zookeepers decided to care for the cub by hand, a decision which has ironically prompted outrage from at least one animal rights group, who have suggested that it would be more humane to kill the cub, rather than allow it to become dependent on humans for its entire life.    This is an interesting point, and one which has dark but intriguing ramifications when applied to certain other species - namely, homo sapiens.  Artificially prolonging the lifespan of genetically inferior instances of the species runs counter to the purpose of evolution.  It makes us all weaker.
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Having daddy around when they are growing up is good for little girls Â even if they are little baboon girls. While that's well known for people, it's a bit of a surprise for non-human primates.
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NEW YORK  - Men without children have a lower risk of prostate cancer compared with fathers, but those who father a brood of kids appear to have a relatively low risk also, the results of a large study suggest.
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"In terms of an asthma gene, there have been quite a few reports but not one that can be clearly reproduced in samples"  A gene that is strongly associated with a risk of developing childhood onset asthma was identified by an international team of scientists, whose findings are published today in the journal Nature. via Science Blog
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Zeno of Elea famously postulated his many paradoxes in defence of Parmenides' worldview: that all is "oneness," and pluralism is merely an illusion.    Of his forty paradoxes, the four most enduring have fascinated philosophers, mathematicians, and regular pundits for millennia.    As one of the many pundits ensnared by Zeno's challenges, I will present my own analysis of arguably his most famous paradox of all: The race between Achilles and the tortoise.
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"I'm very skeptical of the possibility of getting this worked out in a systematic way."  Wading into an age-old debate, researchers have found that firstborn children are smarter than their siblings -- and the reason is not genetics but the way their parents treat them, according to a study published Friday.The study of 240,000 Norwegian men in the journal Science found the IQs of firstborns were two to three points higher than their younger siblings.While that may not sound like much, experts said even a few IQ points can make a big difference over the course of a lifetime -- and set firstborns on a trajectory for success. Read more
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A Web site on sex branches out to one on babies. Surprise!
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Despite the near universal embrace of standards for protecting childhood, a new UNICEF report shows that more than half the world&#39;s children are suffering extreme deprivations from poverty, war and HIV/AIDS, conditions that are effectively denying
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Science & environment: Autism-like behaviour in children is linked to amount of testosterone they receive whilst in mother's womb
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Georgia has too many babies born with infantile paralysis caused by the serious birth defect spina bifida. If all women of reproductive age consumed enough of the B vitamin folic acid
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Parents insist that how kids turn out depends on when they were born. More and more, science agrees
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Children are more likely to be visited by grandparents on their mother's side, researchers say.
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Children with disabilities are more likely to live with a single woman &#151; whether she is a mother, grandmother or a female foster parent &#151; than other children, according to a new study.
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New research discounts a common theory on why poor children are more likely to be overweight than children from wealthier families.