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Money can be a significant source of conflict in relationships, particularly during stressful times. New research from North Carolina State University details techniques romantic couples can use to address financial uncertainty, highlighting the importance of communication in managing uncertainty and reducing stress.

The study, carried out by researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, the IMDEA Networks Institute and NEC Laboratories, has just been published in the journal PLOS ONE. The analysis focuses on the “trending topics” of Twitter because they share some of the same characteristics as news, dealing with subjects that attract the attention of a large number of people.

Thousands of nonhuman primates continue to be confined alone in laboratories despite 30-year-old federal regulations and guidelines mandating that social housing of primates should be the default. A new article co-authored by PETA scientists and Marymount University researchers, published in Perspectives in Laboratory Animal Science, argues that many laboratories cage primates alone—a harmful practice often done for convenience—and that the U.S.

Silicon Valley in Northern California got its nickname from the multitude of computer chip manufacturers that sprung up in the surrounding area in the 1980’s. Despite its ubiquity as a chip building material, silicon may be facing some competition from a new version of an old substance.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component, or organelle, that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. The engineered ribosome may enable the production of new drugs and next-generation biomaterials and lead to a better understanding of how ribosomes function.

Using a climate model that can tag sources of soot from different global regions and can track where it lands on the Tibetan Plateau, researchers have determined which areas around the plateau contribute the most soot—and where. The model can also suggest the most effective way to reduce soot on the plateau, easing the amount of warming the region undergoes.

An analysis of data on stomach acidity and diet in birds and mammals suggests that high levels of stomach acidity developed not to help animals break down food, but to defend animals against food poisoning. The work raises interesting questions about the evolution of stomach acidity in humans, and how modern life may be affecting both our stomach acidity and the microbial communities that live in our guts.

The genetics content of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) – a recent set of performance-based expectations for elementary, middle, and high school students in science classes – represents, on average, a modest improvement over state standards, but is missing core genetics concepts and is difficult to interpret, according to research published today in PLOS ONE by science education specialists at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG).

Rewritable CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs owe their existence to phase-change materials, those materials that change their internal order when heated and whose structures can be switched back and forth between their crystalline and amorphous phases. Phase-change materials have even more exciting applications on the horizon, but our limited ability to precisely control their phase changes is a hurdle to the development of new technology.

Visionect, which is in the business of helping companies build electronic paper display products, announced that Sydney has launched e-paper traffic signs. The traffic signage integrates displays from US manufacturer E Ink and a platform for managing the traffic signs developed by Visionect, according to Visionect’s blog earlier this month.