This Sunday will be devoted to celebrating mothers, and this week’s “Science Times” synthesis is your mother lode of new research on the decreasing height of women in resource poor countries, the impact of exercise, and the function of the placenta. Share your knowledge, and Mom will surely be impressed.

Week of April 26

A new generation’s vanity, heard through hit lyrics: Researchers, seeking to define the personality of a generation through music, have reported a recent trend toward narcissism.

Hippos, warts, and other thugs of the genetic realm: Recent discoveries in cardiac research have spurred interest in understanding the gene, Hippo, which inhibits heart growth.

Study of vision tackles a philosophy riddle: Examining an age-old question, scientists discover that vision-impaired individuals whose vision is restored are not automatically able to connect what they see with objects previously known only through touch.

Height: Very poor women are shrinking, as are their changes at a better life: Height—an indicator of childhood nutrition, disease, and poverty—is declining among women in Africa and South America according to an analysis of demographic data.

Week of May 3

Does exercise really boost your mood?: In addition to releasing hormones, exercise also allows for neurogenesis to occur. Recent research on neurogenesis is mixed in regard to these processes’ impacts on anxiety.

Job description grows for our utility hormone: A recent discovery links the placenta to the development of a hormone with an increasingly complex role in our body’s function: serotonin.

Monkeys’ memories can stretch beyond what’s in front of them: Using rhesus monkeys, researchers demonstrated that monkeys can hold an object in their mind without actually seeing it.