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Looks aren't everything but love, it would seem, is far from blind. Across cultures and sexes, some features hold greater appeal. "More symmetrical faces do seem to be rated more attractive," says Tamsin Saxton, a senior lecturer at Northumbria University and part of the evolution, perception and behaviour research group. "The theory goes that your genes provide a template for symmetrical bodies, symmetrical face. [When] there's some sort of problem - you get ill or you encounter some problem with the environment - that can sometimes throw the symmetry off a little bit," she says. "So it might be that if you are picking a symmetric partner then you are actually picking somebody whose genes are fairly well suited to the environment around you."

Humans and animals could not evolve in a co-operative environment by being selfish, scientists say

In this excerpt from the SBS series, Food Investigators, Dr Paul Harrison from Deakin University discusses with host Renee Lim how supermarket management use a sophisticated understanding of psychology and sociology to manipulate the supermarket environment to persuade us to enter, stay and buy. For more information go to www.sbs.com.au/foodinvestigators and www.tribalinsight.com

Children are notoriously bad at delaying gratification to achieve later, greater rewards -and some are worse at waiting than others. Individual differences in the ability-to-wait have been attributed to self-control, in part because of evidence that long-delayers are more successful in later life (e.g.,Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990. Here we provide evidence that, in addition to self-control, children's wait-times are modulated by an implicit, rational decision-making process that considers environmental reliability. We tested children (M= 4;6,N= 28) using a classic paradigm-the marshmallow task (Mischel, 1974)-in an environment demonstrated to be either unreliable or reliable. Children in the reliable condition waited significantly longer than those in the unreliable condition(p< 0.0005), suggesting that children's wait-times reflected reasoned beliefs about whether waiting would ultimately pay off. Thus, wait-times on sustained delay-of-gratification tasks (e.g., the marshmallow task) may not only reflect differences in self-control abilities, but also beliefs about the stability of the world.

Psychological trauma dims tens of millions of lives around the world and helps create costs of at least $42 billion a year in the United States alone. But what is trauma, exactly?

A team of researchers who found that people think they are more attractive when drinking alcohol, have scooped an Ig Nobel prize for their work.

Many Western nations have experienced significant declines in crime in recent decades, but could the removal of lead from petrol explain that?

Participants' brain scans revealed that artists had increased neural matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery.

Being poor can sap a person's mental resources, research published in the journal Science suggests.

Scans reveal intricate brain wiring

Performing deliberate acts of kindness makes pre-teen children more popular with their peers, say scientists.