Universal concerns, not cultural values, may shape kids’ developing notions of right and wrong (p. 16)

As food allergies proliferate, new strategies may help patients ingest their way to tolerance (p. 20)

Murray Gell-Mann reflects on matter’s building blocks and scientists’ resistance to new ideas (p. 24)

Satellite data reveals that increased irrigation pressure is rapidly depleting groundwater in northern India. (p. 5)

Logging during the last century might have driven birds in mature boreal forests toward pointier wings while reforestation in New England led to rounder wings. (p. 7)

Samples collected from a comet’s halo suggest comets could have carried amino acids to the early Earth (p. 8)

Reports from the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union (p. 7)

Researchers create a material that may one day be used to paste together bones in the body. (p. 8)

Study suggests besides the visible plastic, smaller bits are fouling the waters (p. 9)

U.S. greenbacks are especially effective at pocketing tiny traces of cocaine. (p. 9)

A New Zealand tree’s peculiar leaves may have served as defenses against long-gone giant birds. (p. 10)

Scientists find previously unknown deep-sea species that launch bioluminescent packets. (p. 10)

Alterations in a gene called DEC2 lead to a shortened sleep period in people, mice and fruit flies. (p. 11)

A new study finds evidence for mirror neurons in people. (p. 11)

Violent interactions between planets may have played a key role in shaping the architecture of many extrasolar planet systems. The sun’s planetary system may have escaped or recovered from such a catastrophe. (p. 12)

Researchers find that a strange kind of imaging relies on quantum mechanics. (p. 12)

Estrogen therapy stymies breast cancer in some patients who have exhausted their other options, a new study finds. (p. 13)

New drug limits bone fractures in elderly women and men fighting prostate cancer (p. 13)

People walk in circles when landmarks and other directional cues are not available. (p. 14)

New evidence indicates that people used fires to heat stones in preparation for making cutting instruments at least 72,000 years ago in southern Africa. (p. 15)

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Review by Laura Sanders (p. 27)

Review by Jenny Lauren Lee (p. 27)

P. James E. Peebles, Lyman A. Page Jr. and R. Bruce Partridge, eds. (p. 27)

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