My picks from ScienceDaily

Social Tolerance Allows Bonobos To Outperform Chimpanzees On A Cooperative Task:

In experiments designed to deepen our understanding of how cooperative behavior evolves, researchers have found that bonobos, a particularly sociable relative of the chimpanzee, are more successful than chimpanzees at cooperating to retrieve food, even though chimpanzees exhibit strong cooperative hunting behavior in the wild.

Researchers Discover Breakthrough In Malaria Treatment:

An article published in 'The Lancet' by researchers from the Menzies School of Health Research (MSHR) in Darwin has revealed a breakthrough in the battle to treat Malaria -- a disease which effects 40 per cent of the worlds population.

Rats Capable Of Reflecting On Mental Processes:

Let's say a college student enters a classroom to take a test. She probably already has an idea how she will do on the test, before she even takes out a pencil. But do animals possess the same ability to think about what they know or don't know?

Novel Salamander Robot Crawls Its Way Up The Evolutionary Ladder:

A group of European researchers has developed a spinal cord model of the salamander and implemented it in a novel amphibious salamander-like robot. The robot changes its speed and gait in response to simple electrical signals, suggesting that the distributed neural system in the spinal cord holds the key to vertebrates' complex locomotor capabilities.

Subliminal Advertising Leaves Its Mark On The Brain:

University College London researchers have found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level. The wider implication for the study, published in Current Biology, is that techniques such as subliminal advertising, now banned in the UK but still legal in the USA, certainly do leave their mark on the brain.

How Do I Love Me? New Study Presents A Twist On The Conventional Narcissist:

Conventional wisdom suggests that narcissists have negative self views which are masked by their grandiose self-concept. However, new research in Psychological Science shows that narcissists actually view themselves the same on the outside as on the inside.A brush with a narcissist's inflated ego often leaves one reeling with resentment. Whether it is their constant need for attention or their unfounded sense of entitlement, we are often quick to attribute their shallow behavior to an unconscious self-loathing. However, new research from Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia, Jennifer Bosson at the University of South Florida and colleagues suggests that narcissists actually view themselves the same on the outside as on the inside.

Adoptive Parents Invest More Than Biological Parents In Kids:

Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children compared with biological parents, according to the results of a national study that challenges the more conventional view -- emphasized in legal and scholarly debates -- that children are better off with their biological parents.

Paleo-ecologist Challenges Traditional Amazonian Population Theories:

There's a scholarly debate brewing about whether pre-Columbian Amazonian populations settled in large numbers across Amazonia and created the modern forest setting that many conservationists take to be 'natural.'