Science Notebook

Why they came remains unclear. The possibilities include climate change and dramatic population drops of tuna and large billfish that compete for food in the Humboldt squid's warmer home habitat.

The squid "moved into a new area during a time of substantial climactic, oceanographic and ecological changes," the researchers write in tomorrow's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

-- Nils Bruzelius

The Value of Honesty

When you think about what you like the most about your friends, do you think about:

A) Honesty, sincerity and trustworthiness?

B) Likability, warmth and friendliness?

C) Competence, intelligence and skill?

Research in the August issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that character attributes such as honesty are the most important factors in the positive pictures we form of our "in groups" -- our circle of friends and colleagues, and ethnic groups.

Morality was found to be more important than sociability and competence, according to experiments by Colin Wayne Leach, Naomi Ellemers and Manuela Barreto at institutions in England and the Netherlands.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they also noted that morality was the most important factor in how groups distinguished themselves from one another: "From the Arctic Circle to the Amazon, East Africa, and the South Pacific, morality was the only characteristic that in-groups consistently ascribed to themselves more than to out-groups."

-- Shankar Vedantam