Researchers asked infants of various ages to choose between characters which they had seen behaving well or badly, and found they overwhelmingly favoured the "good" characters.

One-year-old babies who were asked to take treats away from a "naughty" puppet in some cases went so far as to lean over and smack it on the head.

The research, which is being pioneered by a team of psychologists from the Infant Cognition Centre at Yale University, Connecticut, contradicts the belief promoted by psychologists such as Sigmund Freud that babies are born "amoral animals" and acquire a sense of right and wrong through conditioning.

...

There are supposedly 2 billion christians in the world, yet it is left to Muslims to respond when someone insults the prophet (as):

Elton John faces Egyptian cancellation over religion, gay comments

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Wokington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act.

A nasal spray can make men more in tune with other people's feelings, say a team of German and UK researchers.

They found that inhaling the "cuddle hormone" oxytocin made men just as empathetic as women.

The study in 48 volunteers also showed that the spray boosted the ability to learn from positive feedback.

Writing in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers said the spray may be useful for boosting behaviour therapy in conditions such as schizophrenia.

Read more @ BBC News

The only man to admit shooting Malcolm X has been freed on parole, 45 years after he helped assassinate the civil rights leader in New York City.

State Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Linda Foglia says Thomas Hagan was freed Tuesday.

He had spent two days a week at a Manhattan prison under a work-release program.

The 69-year-old Hagan was the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing. He and two others were convicted of murder.

Hagan says he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom. But he says the two men who were convicted with him were not involved. They maintained their innocence and were paroled in the 1980s.

Hagan has repeatedly expressed regret.

Life of abuse from people Michael Gilbert called family

It was a gruesome, squalid end to years of abuse and humiliation.

The headless, dismembered body of Michael Gilbert, 26, was found in a Bedfordshire lake in May 2009.

This discovery would lead police to uncover how the vulnerable young man was kept as a domestic slave by a family and tortured for his benefit payments.

Luton Crown Court heard that for years he was regularly subjected to sickening assaults "for entertainment" by members of the Watt clan and their associates.

Now James Watt, 27, James's girlfriend Natasha Oldfield, 29, and Nichola Roberts, 21, have all been found guilty of his murder.

Promiscuous women are responsible for earthquakes, a senior Iranian cleric has said.

Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi told worshippers in Tehran last Friday that they had to stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he said.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade.

Mr Sedighi was delivering a sermon on the need for a "general repentance" by Iranians.

"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said.

Syria has denied Israeli accusations it had supplied scud missiles to the militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli President Shimon Perez had accused Damascus on Tuesday of shipping the long-range missiles to guerrillas in the south of Lebanon.

The US expressed alarm at the accusation. The Obama administration has re-establish relations with Syria after a five-year hiatus.

A Syrian government statement said the accusations were "fabrications".

Read more @ BBC News

All flights in and out of the UK have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south.

Safety body Eurocontrol said up to 4,000 flights across northern Europe would be cancelled on Thursday.

The air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in or out of UK airspace until 1800BST amid fears of engine damage.

The airspace restriction was the most significant in living memory, a spokesman said.

Nats suggested that the restrictions were unlikely to be lifted after 1800, saying it was "very unlikely that the situation over England will improve in the foreseeable future".

You can read all about it at The Nation

The thing I find weird is that she is reunited with her mothers family and not her father - a person the mother divorced because he did not want to join "a global jihad". Surely he should be the one who is the sensible option to be united with for the child?

(There is still one child missing)