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People are more likely to condemn the bad behaviour of others when they sense someone else may be watching, research by a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney shows. The research, published in Evolutionary Psychology , confirmed the prediction that participants who believed they were being watched, although possibly not conscious of that thought, would express greater disapproval of moral transgressions, than those did not.

For the first time, scientists have used large-scale DNA sequencing data to investigate a long-standing evolutionary assumption: DNA mutation rates are influenced by a set of species-specific life-history traits. These traits include metabolic rate and the interval of time between an individual's birth and the birth of its offspring, known as generation time.

A research breakthrough has proven that it is possible to reprogram mature cells from human skin directly into brain cells, without passing through the stem cell stage. The unexpectedly simple technique involves activating three genes in the skin cells; genes which are already known to be active in the formation of brain cells at the foetal stage.

A skeleton, possibly dating from Roman times, has been unearthed by archaeologists from the University of Bristol during a dig in the garden of vaccination pioneer Dr Edward Jenner in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. The archaeologists, led by Professor Mark Horton and Dr Stuart Prior , have been excavating part of the garden of The Chantry, the former country home of vaccination pioneer, Dr Edward Jenner (1749-1823), during a series of annual digs since 2007.

Painting army vehicles with high contrast geometric patterns - 'dazzle camouflage' - affects the perception of their speed and thus could make them less susceptible to rocket propelled grenade attacks, according to new research from the University of Bristol. Warships in both the First and Second World Wars were painted with dazzle camouflage: startling geometric patterns aimed at confusing the enemy rather than concealing the vessel.

Finds that rocks used as key geologic evidence were formed deep within Earth millions of years after the ice age ended PASADENA, Calif.—There's a theory about how the Marinoan ice age—also known as the "Snowball Earth" ice age because of its extreme low temperatures—came to an abrupt end some 600 million years ago.

Scientists have used the latest computer-imaging technology to produce stunning three-dimensional pictures of a 49 million-year-old spider trapped inside an opaque piece of fossilized amber resin. University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Germany, created the intricate images using X-ray computed tomography to study the remarkable spider, which can barely be seen under the microscope in the old and darkened amber.

A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures.

The difficulties and dangers faced by journalists reporting conflict will be explored by a panel of war correspondents in an event for the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne tomorrow, Wednesday 11 May. In addition to the dangers posed to journalists, the nature of conflicts has changed, said Dr Fay Anderson, historian and author of a recent book about the Australian experience of conflict reporting.

President Obama watched Navy SEALs raid the house where Osama bin Laden was killed in "real time," news outlets reported. Gamers spend their time immersed in fantasy. Our cell phone calls and Skype video chats send us real-time images and sounds that re-create a simultaneously occurring reality. What if realities we take for granted are not, in fact, real? In a new paper surveying work on questions of perceived reality, Shimon Edelman, professor of psychology, ranges from cryptography and computing to mathematics and Descartes.

A new and affordable antibiotic called gatifloxacin should be used to treat typhoid. That's the recommendation of Oxford University researchers who have carried out the largest clinical trial yet to compare treatments for the disease. The results of the trial in Kathmandu, Nepal, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Li Ka Shing Foundation, are published in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79) was one of the world's greatest physicists, and 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of two of his most important achievements, both accomplished while he was Professor of Natural Philosophy at King's from 1860 to 1865. 1861 saw not only the publication of his first paper on electromagnetic theory, but also the first photograph produced according to Maxwell's three-colour method, taken by photographic pioneer Thomas Sutton of King's.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. A new study louses up a popular theory of animal evolution and opens up the possibility that dinosaurs were early - perhaps even the first - animal hosts of lice. The study, in Biology Letters, uses fossils and molecular data to track the evolution of lice and their hosts. It offers strong evidence, the researchers said, that the ancestors of lice that today feed on birds and mammals began to diversify before a mass extinction event killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

PASADENA, Calif. Like forensic scientists examining fingerprints at a cosmic crime scene, scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini, Galileo and New Horizons missions have traced telltale ripples in the rings of Saturn and Jupiter back to collisions with cometary fragments dating back more than 10 years ago.

Multiculturalism is associated with strengthening the ties between different ethnic groups, according to an extensive study of English data. A research team led by Dr Laia Bécares from The University of Manchester reveals that neighbourhoods with higher ethnic diversity are associated with higher rates of social cohesion, respect for ethnic differences, and neighbours of different backgrounds getting on well together.

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota is hosting Meïr Waintrater, French journalist and editor-in-chief of L'Arche, the premier magazine of the Jewish community in France. Waintrater will present "'You, Zionist!' Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse" at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center, 1375 St. Paul Ave, St. Paul.

University Park, Pa. Just as the constant pressure soldiers face on the battlefield can follow them home in the form of debilitating stress, African Americans who face chronic exposure to racial discrimination may have an increased likelihood of suffering a race-based battle fatigue, according to Penn State researchers.

AUSTIN, Texas — African American teenagers are significantly more supportive than whites of affirmative action and school desegregation, according to a new psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin. Rebecca Bigler, professor of psychology and director of the Gender and Racial Attitudes Lab at The University of Texas at Austin, and Julie Milligan Hughes, a developmental psychologist at the College of New Jersey, published their findings in the March issue of Developmental Psychology.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—In the mating game, some female mites are mightier than their mates, new research at the University of Michigan and the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests. The evidence comes, in part, from 40 million-year-old mating mites preserved in Baltic amber. In a paper published March 1 in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers Pavel Klimov and Ekaterina Sidorchuk describe an extinct mite species in which the traditional sex roles were reversed.

Health Cath Harris | 24 Feb 11 A novel way of finding people to take part in a new study of dementia is being employed by researchers from the universities of Oxford and London. The Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Aging ( OPTIMA) and the Centre for Stroke and Dementia Research at St Georges , University of London, will host stands at the Who Do You Think You Are?