1. Periodic Fasting May Cut Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes. A study comparing Mormons who fast once a month with Mormons who don’t fast indicates that “[o]ccasional water-only fasts may lower your risk of heart disease and diabetes.”

2. Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School. Research shows that spontaneous, exploratory learning encourages children to “look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options” than when children learn from a teacher giving instruction. This has interesting implications for figuring out how we can best teach children.

3. Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Settlement in North America. An archeological site that is as much as 2,500 years older than previous estimates of when humans reached the Americas indicates that the Americas may have been populated earlier than we thought (as early as 15,500 years ago).

4. Are the Wealthiest Countries the Smartest Countries?. Researchers found “that intelligence made a difference in gross domestic product. For each one-point increase in a country’s average IQ, the per capita GDP was $229 higher. It made an even bigger difference if the smartest 5 percent of the population got smarter; for every additional IQ point in that group, a country’s per capita GDP was $468 higher.”