When faced with adversity, some people succumb to debilitating psychological diseases including posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, while others are able to remain remarkably optimistic. Now, a new mouse study in the October 19 issue of the journal Cell, a publication of Cell Press, reveals that the difference may depend in part on the chemistry of the brains’ reward circuits. The findings could point to new psychiatric drugs, and perhaps even new ways to encourage resilience for people in high-stress circumstances, including soldiers in combat, disaster relief workers, and disaster victims, according to the researchers.

A new study published online on October 18th in Current Biology reveals that adaptive changes in a human gene involved in speech and language were shared by our closest extinct relatives, the Neandertals. The finding reveals that the human form of the gene arose much earlier than scientists had estimated previously. It also raises the possibility that Neandertals possessed some of the prerequisites for language.

Shiny amber jewelry and a mucky Florida swamp have given scientists a window into an ancient ecosystem that could be anywhere from 15 million to 130 million years old.

Bats are the most vocal mammals other than humans, and understanding how they communicate during their nocturnal outings could lead to better treatments for human speech disorders, say researchers at Texas A&M University.

Sugars made by plants are rapidly used by microbes living in their roots, according to new research at the University of York, creating a short cut in the carbon cycle that is vital to life on earth.

Opsin genes (blue) are present and expressed in the cnidarian Hydra. By peering deep into evolutionary history, scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered the origins of photosensitivity in animals.

First it was an apple, now it is an aspirin a day that may keep the doctor away. Aspirin has become standard for heart attack prevention, but research published in the online open access journal BMC Medicine suggests that this may really be a man's drug.

Ocean Conservancy Scientist, Wallace J. Nichols and University of California-Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham found surprising results in a recent peer-reviewed loggerhead sea turtle study that Nichols and Peckham conducted over the course of 10 years. The full study will be published on October 17 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE.

Sea cucumbers are the champions of organ regrowth because they direct their wound healing abilities towards restoring their organs, according to research published in the online open access journal, BMC Developmental Biology. The discovery that Holothuria glaberrima uses similar cellular mechanisms during wound healing and organ regeneration gives us the opportunity to discover how to repair our own wounds and, perhaps eventually, how to regenerate body parts.

Researchers at the University of Rochester believe they have just confirmed a controversial theory of evolution. The X chromosome is a strikingly powerful force in the origin of new species.

The world’s oceans are becoming more acid, with potentially devastating consequences for corals and the marine organisms that build reefs and provide much of the Earth’s breathable oxygen.

Researchers from Kent State University and the University of Bucharest, Romania, have discovered a new primitive crab species Cycloprosopon dobrogea in eastern Romania. Previously unexamined, these ancient crabs from the Prosopidae family existed more than 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period.

Have you ever wondered why you inherited your mother’s smile but not your father’s height? Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Dundee are one step closer to unravelling how nature combines both maternal and paternal DNA to create genetically unique offspring.

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified a gene crucial to the final step of the formation of a functional sperm cell.