Scientists mull advantage of tasting words and hearing colors
Carried by a surprisingly large 4 percent of the population, scientists David Brang and VS Ramachandran have been pondering why…
Brain primed for nakedness
The uniquely human part of the brain that allows us to recognize faces in microseconds is even more sensitive at…
New Europa fractured surface theory holds water – and maybe life
Taking observations of Earth’s ice sheets and floating ice shelves and applying them to Europa, scientists say Jupiter’s moon may…
Unusual physiological changes observed after adolescent sex
Working with adolescent male and mature female hamsters, researchers have found that sex during adolescence can have effects on the…
Contraceptive pill to blame for rise in prostate cancer?
Intriguing new findings from Canadian researchers link rates of prostate cancer around the globe to environmental estrogen pollution caused by…
Fine-particle air pollution causing more severe storms
Climatologists say that aerosols (fine-particle air pollution) in the atmosphere dramatically affect cloud development to reduce precipitation in dry regions…
Lost: one giant planet
Computer simulations of the early solar system suggest the possibility that our system had more than four giant planets initially…
“Green” biofuels anything but
A detailed new study on greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations has calculated a more than 50 percent increase…
Narcotic effects of carbon monoxide keep city dwellers happy
Low levels of the gas carbon monoxide have a narcotic effect on city dwellers, say Tel Aviv University researchers, leading…
Caveman cook calorie kerfuffle corrected
Despite our preoccupation with all things gastronomic, surprising little is known about how food preparation affects the energy it supplies…
T. gondii brain parasite found to alter dopamine production
The brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, found in an estimated 15 percent of the population, has been found to dramatically increase…
Fine structure constant may vary across universe
Electromagnetism, measured by the so-called fine-structure constant, is one of the four fundamental forces of nature and it underpins Einstein’s…
SETI needs to see the light, say astrophysicists
SETI’s (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) quest to find radio signals transmitted by extraterrestrial civilizations has so far failed to locate…
US astronomers give nod to complex organics in space
The controversial notion that complex organic molecules could be relatively common in interstellar space has garnered support from US and…
Birth control shots linked to memory loss
Depo Provera, the hormonal birth control injection, supposedly offers a convenient alternative for women who don’t want to remember to…
Boffins take aim at finance bubbles
US and European scientists have proposed two different methods for detecting finance bubbles, one analyzes verb and noun usage in…
Bacterial “disabler” treatment side-steps antibiotic resistance
It’s not an antibiotic, but it accomplishes the same thing as an antibiotic. A compound that disables bacteria instead of…
Language transforming medicine… for the worse
Senior medicos in the United States have launched a stinging attack on the use of business buzzwords in medicine, arguing…
Stars manufacturing complex organic matter?
An analysis of the spectral emissions from distant stars suggests that compounds of unexpected complexity – some resembling coal and…
Flood-tolerant crop breakthrough
Scientists from The University of Nottingham and the University of California, Riverside, have identified the molecular mechanism plants use to…
Compelling evidence for autism-antidepressant link
Rodents exposed to a common serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant just before and after birth exhibited brain abnormalities and behaviors…
Scientists mull brain size-Facebook correlation
People with more Facebook friends have more grey matter in their brain, but University College London (UCL) scientists aren’t sure…
Autism’s facial characteristics revealed
Researchers from the University of Missouri have found distinct differences between the facial characteristics of children with autism compared to…
Men 2% funnier than women
A University of California study by psychologist Laura Mickes has found that men are funnier than women, but not by…
Clever vibrational hack turns iPhone into spyPhone
Researchers at Georgia Tech have demonstrated how a smartphone accelerometer (the sensor that detects the phone’s orientation) can sense nearby…
Oral bacteria linked to colon cancer
The discovery of a strikingly large number ofFusobacterium cells in colorectal tumor samples has prompted researchers to consider that the…
Software identifies psychopaths
Using computer software to analyze the speech patterns of psychopathic killers shows they make readily identifiable subconscious word choices when…
Londoners lead in cell phone crap stakes
British poo boffins say that one-in-six of the cell phones they analyzed was contaminated with fecal matter and E. coli…
Schizophrenia created in a petri dish
Neurobiologists are using genetic engineering to reprogram skin cells – of patients with schizophrenia and other neurological disorders – and…
Immune system ruse nixes peanut allergy
For the first time, Northwestern University researchers have turned off a life-threatening allergic response to peanuts by tricking the immune…