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Big seeds produced by tropical trees such as black palms were probably once ingested and then left whole by huge mammals called gomphotheres.

Gomphotheres weighed more than a ton and dispersed the seeds over large distances.

But these Neotropical creatures disappeared more than 10,000 years ago. So why aren't large-seeded plants also extinct?

A paper published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that rodents may have taken over the seed-dispersal role of gomphotheres.

A detailed study of heart muscle function in mice has uncovered evidence to explain why exercise is beneficial for heart function in type 2 diabetes. The research team, led by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, found that greater amounts of fatty acids used by the heart during stressful conditions like exercise can counteract the detrimental effects of excess glucose and improve the diabetic heart's pumping ability in several ways.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Black people who are married don't appear to live any longer than black couples who simply live together, suggesting marriage doesn't boost longevity for blacks the way it does for whites, according to a large national study led by Michigan State University.

"This finding implies that marriage and cohabitation have very different meanings for blacks and whites," said MSU sociologist Hui Liu, the study's lead researcher.

Males of the Japanese tree frog have learnt not to use their calls at the same time so that the females can distinguish between them. Scientists at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia have used this form of calling behaviour to create an algorithm that assigns colours to network nodes – an operation that can be applied to developing efficient wireless networks.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Despite criticism that local school boards are "dinosaurs" that need to be replaced, Americans support local control of their schools, Michigan State University education scholars argue in a new paper.

The public believes that all three levels of government – local, state and federal – should be involved in education policy and that local officials should be in charge of day-to-day operations of the schools, said Rebecca Jacobsen, lead researcher on the project.

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science have developed a technique to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, that could lead to new approaches to treating cancer.

Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause anywhere from 15 to 1,300 deaths and from 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, Stanford researchers have calculated.

The estimates have large uncertainty ranges, but contrast with previous claims that the radioactive release would likely cause no severe health effects.

The numbers are in addition to the roughly 600 deaths caused by the evacuation of the area surrounding the nuclear plant directly after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown.

Researchers have discovered a gene mutation responsible for an inherited form of bowel cancer, Lynch Syndrome.  Lynch Syndrome is an inherited form of bowel cancer responsible for up to 5% of cases of the disease.

Colorectal (bowel) cancer is the second most common internal cancer in the developed world. It is usually preceded by polyps on the colon wall and Lynch Syndrome is one of several conditions that increases the risk of polyps and subsequent cancer.

Consumers are more likely to select products located in the horizontal center of a display and may not make the best choices as a result, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"A close investigation of visual attention reveals that consumers do not accurately recall their choice process. Our findings emphasize the relationship between horizontal location, attention, and choice," write authors A. Selin Atalay (HEC Paris), H. Onur Bodur (Concordia University), and Dina Rasolofoarison (Aston Business School).

While the causes of autism continue to be debated and bandied about, real families who have children with autism spectrum disorders are left to struggle with expensive health care needs. These costs can be devastating - but they can also be markedly different if the family lives in Massachusetts or Maine.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that higher blood pressure is associated with lower mortality in extremely frail, elderly adults.

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA) Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at a nationally representative group of 2,340 adults ages 65 and older. The researchers found that lower blood pressure protected healthier, robust older adults but the same may not be true for their more frail counterparts.

CHICAGO – A study suggests bariatric surgery to treat obesity was not associated with reduced health care expenditures three years after the procedure in a group of predominantly older men, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Surgery, a JAMA Network publication.

CHICAGO – Restrictions on indoor tanning, which studies suggest is linked to skin cancer, appear to have increased in several countries since 2003, according to a study published Online First by Archives of Dermatology, a JAMA Network publication.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —A new epidemiological study led by UC Davis researchers reveals significant racial disparities in the use of non-surgical larynx-preservation therapy for locally advanced laryngeal cancer.