Washington: Given the choice, many dogs prefer praise from their owners over food, suggests a new study published in the journal Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. The study is one of the first to combine brain-imaging data with behavioral experiments to explore canine reward preferences.

Paris: Girls need to be taught to be more competitive, new research from Université Paris-Saclay finds. 

Washington: Twins not only have a bestie from birth — they also live longer than singletons. And those two factors may be related, according to new University of Washington research.

London: The economic crisis and austerity are having an unexpected consequence: more young men striving for gym-fit, photo-perfect bodies that they use to create a social media brand.

Columbus: If you want to predict which political party someone will support, take note of the person’s height. The taller a person is, the more likely he or she is to support conservative political positions, support a conservative party and actually vote for conservative politicians, according to a new study using data from Britain.

Denver: When it comes to personal finances, impulsiveness and materialism can lead to bad decisions and a failure to save enough, but research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association suggests that when people focus more on the future, they tend to be less impulsive, regardless of their level of financial literacy.

London: If you want to get a little, you should try giving a little. New research from the University of Guelph and Nipissing University shows that people who help others are more desirable to the opposite sex, have more sexual partners and more frequent sex.

Houston: A study of the impact of "boomerang fathers" -- those who cycle in and out of their children's lives -- yielded surprising results for researchers. "Boomerang fathering" provided a type of stability in a daughter's life that staved off her depressive symptoms compared to those adolescent girls whose fathers were completely absent.

Washington: People commit fraud because they are unhappy about being rejected, a new study in Frontiers in Psychology has found.

Washington: Many in the general public think scientific and technological innovations bring helpful change to society, but they are more concerned than excited when it comes to the potential use of emerging technologies to make people's minds sharper, their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.