Smaller-than-expected birth weight may track with weaker school results years later
Researchers followed 92,551 children born in Norway at full term, measuring language and movement skills from six months to five years and linking the data to national school-test results through the mid-teens. Children who weighed less than expected for their week of pregnancy tended to score lower in mathematics and reading, with the gap still visible at ages 14–15; being born a week or two early within the full-term window, by contrast, showed only small early delays that had largely faded by school age. This was an observational birth-cohort study, so it shows a link rather than proving birth size itself causes the differences, and the researchers note that parenting, home stimulation, and school support may shift the outcome.
Source: University of Warwick (study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology)
Older adults open dating apps more for company than for romance
Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney surveyed 301 dating-app users aged 18 to 86 about five possible motives: social approval, relationship seeking, sexual experience, socializing, and entertainment. Socializing grew more important with age while relationship seeking, sexual experience, and social-approval motives all faded; among older users only, chasing social approval was tied to greater loneliness. This was a one-time cross-sectional survey, so it cannot say whether app use causes loneliness or loneliness shapes why people use the apps.
Source: GCN (study in Psychology and Aging)
Octopus smarts may come from how their DNA is folded, not just what it contains
Scientists at the University of Vienna reconstructed the three-dimensional folding of the genome in octopus, squid, and cuttlefish and compared it with gene-activity data. They found that an ancient burst of genome reorganization brought distant stretches of DNA into new contact, creating interconnected gene-regulation networks — a process they call "regulatory entanglement" — with many of the flexible connections sitting near genes tied to the nervous system. The work suggests that how a genome is folded can actively shape evolution, not just passively record it; it is comparative genomics, not a lab test of intelligence itself.
Source: News-Medical (study in Nature Communications)