From rich to richer: Stars who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths

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  Gwyneth PaltrowMitchell Elvy/Globe Photos, Inc./ImageCollect, KGC-11/starmaxinc.com/ImageCollect

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  Lady GagaSeth Poppel/Yearbook Library, Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com/ImageCollect

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  Kobe BryantSeth Poppel/Yearbook Library, Tleopold/globephotos/ImageCollect

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Everyone loves a rags to riches story - especially in Hollywood. But not every A-List actor or Billboard pop star waited tables until they got their big break. Some of them had more than a little help from their well-connected families or a top-notch theater programs at elite colleges. Our friends at Snakkle.com find out which stars went from rich to richer.

Click here to see the rest of “Stars Who Grew Up Rich—Before They Were Stars” photos 

Gwyneth Paltrow

THEN: Gwyneth didn't exactly luck into fame and fortune. The star is the daughter of the late producer-director Bruce Paltrow, and her mom is actress Blythe Danner. Like many jet-setting teens, Gwyneth grew up in L.A. and New York City, where she attended the elite all-girls Spence School.

NOW: Starring in megahits like “Iron Man 3” and appearing on the 2013 cover of People magazine’s “Most Beautiful Woman” issue is only going to add to Gwyneth’s bottom line. It certainly doesn’t hurt that her husband, Chris Martin, continues to rake in millions of dollars of his own thanks to the ongoing success of his group, Coldplay.

Lady Gaga

THEN: Lady Gaga moved to New York City’s gritty Lower East Side before she hit it big, but she grew up in a duplex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Gaga’s father, Joe Germanotta, became rich by investing in hotel Wi-Fi services.

NOW: Gaga attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a Manhattan private school that cost an estimated $35,000 per year, but the pop superstar still slams "everyone that was spitting in my face and making me feel so worthless." Worthless is exactly what Gaga isn’t. She’s amassed a giant fortune over the past few years.

Kobe Bryant

THEN: Kobe Bryant’s life seemed destined to be a slam-dunk success right from the start thanks to his position as the son of NBA star Joe “Jellybean” Bryant.

NOW: Though Kobe was accused of sexual assault on a 19-year-old in 2003—rape charges were later dismissed— the basketball player managed to bounce back. He helped the Lakers make the 2008 NBA Finals. They lost, but Kobe assisted in bringing them back to win the championship title the next year. Kobe scored two gold medals as part of the U.S. basketball team during the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and the sports star is still going strong today.

Miley Cyrus

THEN: Miley Cyrus started out life in the shadow of her famous country crooner father, Billy Ray. He made millions off his hit song, “Achy Breaky Heart,” and kept his future superstar daughter on a $300 monthly allowance (not bad if you ask us).

NOW: Miley far surpassed her father’s earning power years ago, and she’s now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The former “Hannah Montana” star oversees a massive merchandising empire, and she now has several chart-topping albums under her belt.

PHOTOS: Stars Who Went to School Together!

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Subaru recalling 47,000 cars that could start on their own

Subaru of America is recalling more than 47,000 cars and SUVs with remote starters because the engines can start on their own.

The recall affects some Legacy and Outback cars from the 2010 to 2013 model years. Also covered are the Impreza from 2012 and 2013 and the XV Crosstrek from 2013.

Subaru says that if the key fob is dropped, it can malfunction and start the engine. The motor will run for up to 15 minutes, but could continue to start and stop until the car runs out of gas or the fob battery dies. If the cars are parked in a garage, there's a risk of carbon monoxide buildup.

The cars all have automatic or continuously variable transmissions. Subaru dealers will replace the fobs free of charge.

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Whoa! Mutant tadpoles sprout eyeballs on their tails

Eyes hooked up to the tail can help blinded tadpoles see, researchers say.

These findings could help guide therapies involving natural or artificial implants, scientists added.

A major roadblock when it comes totreating blindness and other sensory disorders is how much remains unknown about the nervous system and its ability to adapt to change. To learn more about the relationship between the body and the brain, researchers wanted to see how capable the brain was of interpreting sensory data from abnormal "ectopic" locations from which it normally does not receive signals.

Eye on the tail
Scientists experimented with 134 tadpoles of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis, a common lab animal. They painstakingly grafted new eyes onto places such as their torsos and tails and then surgically removed their original eyes. [See Images of the Odd-Eyed Tadpoles]

'We have four-headed worms, six-legged frogs, and many other unusual creatures here.'

- Michael Levin, a developmental biologist at Tufts University

"We do a lot of work to understand regenerative biology, and that entails experiments that change the body," researcher Michael Levin, a developmental biologist at Tufts University, told LiveScience. "We have four-headed worms, six-legged frogs, and many other unusual creatures here as part of our work on bioelectricity and organ regeneration."

These experimental tadpoles then received a vision test the researchers first refined on normal tadpoles. The tadpoles were placed in a circular arena half illuminated with red light and half with blue light, with software regularly switching what color light the areas received. When tadpoles entered places lit by red light, they received a tiny electric zap. A motion-tracking camera kept tabs on where the tadpoles were.

Remarkably, the scientists found that six tadpoles that had eyes implanted in their tails could apparently see, choosing to remain in the safer blue-light areas.

"The brain is not wired to find an eye on the tail, since it's never happened before and thus is not something the brain has evolved specifically to deal with, and yet it can recognize this patch of tissue as providing valuable visual information," Levin said.

"These findings suggest that the brain has remarkable plasticity and may actually take a survey of its body configuration to make use of different body arrangements," Levin added. "If it were not the case, then every time a mutation produced an improvement in body plan — a large significant change in anatomy — the animal would die and the beneficial mutation would be lost."

Rather, when a mutation makes a change in the body plan of an embryo, the brain-body programs that tell an eye to see and a hand to grasp, for instance, "don't suddenly become useless," Levin said. "The brain can map its activity onto a wide range of configurations of the body. This modularity makes it much easier for complex new body features to evolve."

Augmentation technology
The transplanted eyes came from tadpole donors genetically modified to generate a red fluorescent protein. As such, the researchers could see under a microscope whether these eyes sent red nerves outward in the body. Half the recipient tadpoles had no such nerves grow, while about a quarter had nerves projecting toward the gut and the other quarter had nerves extending toward their spine.

The six tadpoles that could see well all had nerves plugged into their spine, which makes sense — their eyes apparently linked with their central nervous system.

"This has implications not only for regenerative medicine — replacing damaged sensory and motor organs — but also for augmentation technology," Levin said. "Perhaps you'd like some more eyes, maybe ones that see in infrared?" [Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies]

One question Levin and his colleagues often get asked "is whether the tadpoles are experiencing sight from these ectopic eyes like they do from normal eyes," Levin said. "We have no idea what a tadpole is experiencing. This is a philosophical question that is not immediately tractable.

"Another thing people sometimes assume is that this capability is only for tadpoles or 'lower' animals," Levin said. "In fact, this kind of thing probably works in humans also, as evidenced by related studies over the last few years. Brain plasticity is a fundamental aspect of the function of the nervous system and its interface to the body."

The researchers seek to figure out three other aspects: which brain regions are processing the sensory data, how many extra eyes a frog brain can handle, and how the brain knows that this piece of tissue on the tail is providing visual data, and not simply indicating an infection, injury or other sense like smell, Levin said.

Levin and his colleague Douglas Blackiston detailed their findings online today (Feb. 27) in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

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