SciTech Daily Review - science, technology, future developments, innovations, implications

May the source be with you: So you think you've got it all made with your PC's Windows operating system? Well, think again (registration required) ... [more]

What's the purpose of life? Nanotechnology might provide the answer ... [more]

Cancer in a bottle?: Many of the same poisons that pollute our environment can be found in the jars and bottles that line our bathroom shelves ... [more]

Uncommon morality: Can bioethics bring us all together? Not unless bioethicists can come to some agreement on ethical principles and actual norms ... [more]

Why is the US trying to keep reports on non-lethal weapons research secret? Proposals for bugs that eat roads and buildings are among 77 reports that have now been pulled from public access ... [more]

An inquiry into reports claiming to prove links between the drug ecstasy and brain damage says the research is fundamentally flawed and has misled politicians and the public ... [more]

Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? Certainly, argues Michael Ruse, because virtually every tenet of conservative Christianity is immanent within Darwinism, and an inevitable result of the evolutionary process. Hmmm ... [more]

To enhance or not to enhance, that is the question. Whether 'tis ethical in the mind to genetically engineer one's offspring ... [more]

The basic building blocks of nature may not be atoms, quarks and strings but quantum bits -- ultra small packets of pure information ... [more]

Two things are certain about pills that treat depression: Antidepressants work. And so do sugar pills ... [more]

Ignore the doubters, says Johnjoe McFadden. GM crops can help to feed the world ... [more]

Is it morally acceptable for a "disabled" couple to try to have a "disabled" child? Is it ethical to risk multiple births -- and multiple handicaps -- through some fertility treatments? What difficulties can parents reasonably bequeath to their child-to-be? ... [more]

The services provided by natural ecosystems are seldom included in economic analyses. But can capitalism save ecosystems? ... [more] And is selfishness the best policy? ... [more]

A legacy of swans: On the centenary of controversial philosopher Karl Popper, the question stands: was he really rightwing, or just misunderstood? ... [more]

"The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder," wrote Charles Darwin. But a cold shudder was not reason enough to abandon a scientific theory ... [more]

The ant man: Biologist and environmentalist E O Wilson has a lifelong consuming passion: ants. In them, he sees a glimmer of hope for the future of our planet ... [more]

It would be the height of "speciesism" to suggest that nature's profound creations must justify their presence to humans, says nature writer Robert Winkler. Wildlife is important for a simple reason: it exists ... [more]

"How beauteous mankind is!" said Miranda in The Tempest. But can natural evolution or our own genetic engineering improve on the present model, asks Colin Tudge ... [more]

The great apes share most of humans' DNA & many of our cognitive and social characteristics. Does that mean they should be entitled to be represented in court like the rest of us? ... [more]

Does the existence of a criminal brain diminish the notion of personal responsibility? And if behaviour is determined by biology, where does that leave morality? ... [more]

The proliferation of species during the Cambrian explosion was mostly due to sex and violence, says Canadian palaeontologist Nicholas Butterfield ... [more]

What if the Big Bang wasn't the beginning of time, and the Big Crunch won't be its end? Is it possible that we live in a recycled universe? ... [more]

The 300-million-gallon warning: Abandoned coal-slurry ponds in the US are environmental disasters waiting to happen ... [more]

I am the human genome, says Craig Venter, the controversial geneticist who led private industry's human genome decoding effort ... [more]

Women are just as well equipped as men to claw their way to the top. It may just take them a little longer to make the first move ... [more]

Francis Fukuyama is the intellectual as celeb, ready to pronounce on all the questions of the day including, soon, our "posthuman future" ... [more]

By the time we have proof that the use of antibiotic growth promoters in animals is a threat to human health, it will be too late to do anything about it, say US epidemiologists ... [more]

Envirocars are cute, smart and full of good, clean fun. But do consumers really think about the environment when they're purchasing a vehicle? ... [more]

Thumbs up for the bright, white folks: Eugenics still has a loyal, respectable -- and prominent -- following in the US ... [more]

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould is set to publish his "magnum opus", in which he lambasts creationists for deliberately distorting his theories to undermine the teaching of Darwinism in schools ... [more]

Conservation strategies will fail unless they start by addressing human issues such as poverty and malnutrition, warns a leading British environmental scientist ... [more]

I have no need of superstitions (touch wood), says Philip Hensher ... But the next day my bike got a puncture, the dog wet a carpet and I lost my wallet in the supermarket ... [more]

Was 11 September actually the work of the CIA? Why is no plane visible on photos taken seconds before the Pentagon was hit? And why are conspiracy theories back in vogue? ... [more]

Consider her ways ... Shetland sheep and red colobus monkeys can teach us a great deal about staying healthy, says animal behaviourist Cindy Engel ... [more]

One of the problems in defending modern science and technology against its critics is that the nasty things that don't happen to us just aren't as interesting as the scary things that might ... [more]

Can pain treatment survive the US's addiction to law? The victim overdosed on tranquilizers, alcohol, and OxyContin. Does that mean he was murdered by his physician? ... [more]

When the latest US federal anti-drug ads run alongside spots for Zoloft and caffeine during family movies, it's no wonder that children are confused about drugs, says Lynn Paltrow ... [more]

Want free software? Be prepared to download a few unwelcome surprises at the same time ... [more]

Wanted: black astronauts. NASA is encouraging African American students to study space-related sciences. But one of the biggest hurdles may be resistance from within the black community ... [more]

US legislators may not be able to find "a compelling justification for allowing human cloning," -- but can they offer a compelling justification for closing off this tremendously promising avenue of research? ... [more]

From ancient portents of war to modern tales of alien invaders, Mars has always been a provocateur. The Red Planet is still stirring up controversy, as the Martian meteorite debate rages on ... [more]

A kidney transplant gave Eric Trump new life. But like millions of Americans without adequate health insurance, he now can't afford the drugs he needs to stay alive ... [more]

A boom in illicit transplants is forcing the medical community to confront an age-old taboo: should there be a legalised trade in body parts? ... [more]

A tale of two mayors: the improbable story of how Bogota, Colombia -- one of Latin America's most infamous cities -- became a model of progressive urban development ... [more]

The refusal of joy is the unhealthiest habit, says Philip Lefebvre. We do ourselves more damage by obsessing about food than by eating for the pure pleasure of it ... [more]

GM trees are the Next Big Thing in transgenics. But the question arises, as always: what's the downside of these new, improved forests? ... [more]

Parthenogenesis makes much more sense than the endless hunt for an appealing mate. Extensive studies of reproduction lead inevitably to the conclusion that we don't really know why sex exists ... [more]

It's time to face the sad truth about child molesters: the best treatments available are not effective enough to keep them from re-offending ... [more]

I've got your chip under my skin ... We're all barcodes now ... [more]

Anishinaabe U: By mixing mainstream curriculum with Native wisdom, American Indian colleges are redefining the Western idea of learning, and producing students who walk confidently in both of their cultures ... [more]

Psychological research is largely well-funded and well-managed, and produces reams of fascinating data, says Rand Wilcox. But it has one big, glaring weak point: data analysis ... [more]

Growing long-vanished civilizations and modern-day genocides on computers will probably never enable us to foresee the future -- but we might learn to anticipate the kinds of events that lie ahead ... [more]

Your cell phone is watching you. A recent US law requires that all new cell phones be equipped with GPS tracking devices ... [more]

Disrupting life's messages: New research into the effects of chemicals is rewriting the rules of toxicology and necessitating new approaches to regulation ... [more]

If creationism is on the rise in the UK, blame the academic left as much as the religious right, says Patrick West ... [more]

Bhopal refuses to flip the page -- after more than 17 years, thousands of Indians still suffer from the lethal gases that leaked from a US chemical plant ... [more]

One of the hottest arguments in medicine these days is what to do about nothing: the use of placebos is an ethical minefield for researchers ... [more]

Our temperaments are like flower bulbs, says Dr Paul Costa. We blossom with good care and wither from neglect, but nothing can change a tulip into a rose ... [more]

The biological invaders are coming! Hardy, prolific, and adaptable exotic species are poised to take over the world ... [more]

Mind-altering drugs may be so popular because they were once used by our ancestors to survive, two leading anthropologists argue ... [more]

With more than 500 environmental agreements and agencies now operating around the globe, environmental regulation is in chaos. What is needed may be a global governing body ... [more]

What is the most seductive equation in science? Beauty equals truth (registration required) ... [more]

A report by the UK Environment Agency has raised fears that chemicals which are being blamed for changing the sex of male fish could also have an effect on human fertility ... [more]

Do languages help mould the way we think? A controversial idea from the 1930s is getting a second look ... [more]

Can we afford the cure? Hopes are high that a new generation of drugs could combat cancer. But their cost could be prohibitive ... [more]

Hooray for designer babies! What horrors do genetically selected babies face? Let's start with longer, healthier, and perhaps even happier lives ... [more]

Prozac and related antidepressants could pose a cancer threat by blocking the body's innate ability to kill tumor cells, British scientists say. But findings from test-tube studies don't necessarily apply in real life ... [more]

Virus vanquisher DA Henderson led the global campaign to eradicate smallpox; now he’s working against its return ... [more]

Castles in the sea: Is Graham Hancock bonkers? His theories on the origins of civilisation have been dismissed by archaeologists as rubbish. But he insists that a discovery off the coast of India could prove him right ... [more]

Internet gamblers may be more likely to have a serious gambling problem than other gamblers, researchers say ... [more]

Plastic surgery is often portrayed as a psychological crutch for the vain and insecure. But considering the practical advantages of being considered attractive, perhaps it's a rational choice after all ... [more]

Is soy the key to a long life? Probably not, but many people are looking for simple answers to complex questions, and the purveyors of quick health fixes are happy to supply them ... [more]

Stalking the American lobster: A new breed of ecologist is heeding the lore and lessons of the lobsterman ... [more]

As the whorl turns: Will fingerprints, one of the gold standards of criminal evidence, turn to lead? ... [more]

If people on St John's wort were depressed before, imagine how they'll feel when they realize it interferes with contraceptive pills. And that's just one of many supplementary interactions to watch out for ... [more]

We were scared to death long before 11 September, says Frank Furedi. Public panics about everything from mobile phones to global warming have less to do with science and empirical evidence than with cultural assumptions about human vulnerability ... [more]

Since its formulation, observers have accused the Kyoto protocol of being a paper tiger. Whether that tiger becomes extinct will depend on the flexibility and strength of the European Union ... [more]

From televised gastro-porn to genetic modification, the US is in the throes of a giant food fight. Is it really so strange that food studies has entered academia? ... [more]

Cannabis is less risky than either tobacco or alcohol, according to an official report by the UK government's drug advisory council -- which also backs a proposal to decriminalise the drug ... [more]

When US researchers zapped a chamber of organic solvent with high-speed neutrons, they hoped it would trigger a fusion reaction. Whether they succeeded is debatable, but they certainly ignited a furor in the scientific community ... [more] ... [more]

Human cloning may be a long way off, but bioengineered kids are already here ... [more]

Alas, poor evolutionary psychology: The discipline has been unfairly accused and unjustly condemned, says Robert Kurzban ... [more]

If you speak English, you have a linguistic leg up on becoming an interstellar traveler. But it's not all plain sailing ... [more]

Is grumpiness an illness, which has to be removed by drugs or hormones or whatever? And why do we seem to assume that unless we are all cheerful most of the time, there must be something wrong with us? ... [more]

Sustaining agriculture: Organic farming is going mainstream and conventional farming is getting friendlier. But the Garden of Eden will have to wait, as turf wars and foreign competition threaten farms of all sizes and sensibilities ... [more]

Composting Grandma: Since traditional methods of human disposal are inhumane, toxic and gross, why not just wrap Grandpa Ed or old Aunt Em in organic cotton sheets and plant them in the garden? ... [more]

In praise of the Pill: The oral contraceptive pill has done great things for women. So Jennie Bristow asks: why the endless supply of complaints? ... [more]

Aspirations in science and civics: From the carbon-nanotube lab to the corridors of Washington power, Mildred S Dresselhaus has followed a career that combines scientific research with public service ... [more]

It seems that mental bonds are harder to crack than physical ones. A close look at the seemingly intractable nature of slavery in Gabon in West Africa provides a case study for the global phenomenon of human bondage ... [more]

Stephen Jay Gould -- palaeontologist and popular science author -- talks about evolution, the overratedness of dinosaurs, and baseball ... [more]

Mad, bad and dangerous: Whether it's the MMR vaccine or GM foods, people distrust what scientists tell them. And they are perfectly right to do so, writes Colin Tudge ... [more]

Making cancer sexy: Time magazine's cover story features a naked, airbrushed, very thin woman with blond hair, covering her breasts and staring blankly into space. Apparently, she's there to tell you about The New Thinking on Breast Cancer ... [more]

The gloves are coming off in an academic bust-up over ancient fossil bacteria (or perhaps they're just strange rocks) ... [more]

Animal hoarders think they're helping their furry friends, but mostly they're just feeding their own twisted psyches ... [more]

The Skeptical Environmentalist has received rave reviews in the popular press, and raised a blizzard of controversy. But the Union of Concerned Scientists asks: why was the publication not peer-reviewed? And are statistician Bjorn Lomborg's statistics up to scratch? ... [more]

Palm readers, clairvoyants and their fellow mystics seem to miraculously discover details of their clients' lives, relationships and even thoughts. But to the sceptical observer, it's all psychic sophistry ... [more]

Locking horns: Rival zoologists are sparring over some twisted horns from an Asian cow-like creature. Are the specimens the reality behind a Cambodian myth, or clever fakes by local artisans? ... [more]

Designer babies and other fairy tales: When states ban contraception or second children or fertility treatment, the female body, once a private matter, becomes a public issue ... [more]

History books may need to be rewritten in the light of new evidence that Chinese explorers had discovered most parts of the world by the mid-15th century -- beating Columbus to America by 72 years ... [more]

Fruits we'll never taste: Preserving diversity -- in the natural world and human culture -- lets us delight in an abundant world ... [more]

The SETI Institute is trying to encode the concept of altruism to transmit to alien species. But if evolutionary psychologists are right about the origins of altruism, we may come across as tribalistic barbarians ... [more]

Bjorn Lomborg is a heretic, according to the environmental movement. His heresy? He is publicly and vocally optimistic about the state of the Earth and the outlook for our planet's future ... [more]

Anthropologist Helen Fisher argues that romance, marriage and divorce follow predictable patterns as old as the species. The evidence is as near as your local bar ... [more]

Why did our species evolve such a terrible capacity for violence? Is a propensity for violence against our own kind genetic? And how can a political or religious ideal come to seem more valuable than human lives? Anthropologist Pat Shipman searches for answers ... [more]

Facing your genetic destiny: The use of predictive genetic tests is still limited to a handful of relatively rare and highly hereditary diseases, but that's about to change ... [more]

To many non-scientists, spending billions of dollars on studying the structure of the atom or the status of the distant universe seems to be a waste of good money. But investment in science does pay off in the end ... [more]

Are they becoming us or are we becoming them? Rodney Brooks, one of the world's leading roboticists, discusses the machines in our future -- their ability to think, feel, reproduce and achieve personhood ... [more]

Reconstructive surgeon Iain Hutchison has an unusual method of helping his patients cope with months of gruelling facial surgery -- he calls in portrait artist Mark Gilbert ... [more]

Genome liberation: The information that details who we are is too important to be privately owned ... [more]

Divining Comedy: Can researchers dissect humour without killing the patience? ... [more]

First kisses: Wanna know how kissing got started? Are you sure? According to anthropologists, it's not that pretty ... [more]

Star trek criteria: Potential interstellar travellers will need to be "motivated, tolerant and nice" ... [more]

Remember when scientists were gods? The white coats are looking grubbier now, after far too many scandals ... [more]

Research by UK economists has provided surprising insight into just how much people hate a winner ... [more]

Laws being introduced by the UK Government would give it the power to suppress academic research -- and even to prohibit email collaboration with foreign colleagues ... [more]

Here's a new strategy for parents who don't want their children to smoke or drink: don't let them watch R-rated movies ... [more]

Since the 1950s, US farmers have been fattening cattle with growth hormones, and making up for unsanitary conditions with the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. George W Bush says that this helps national security. Go figure ... [more]

Chewing over GM food: Nothing can ever be 100 percent safe. So why do we demand a risk-free life, asks Vivian Moses ... [more]

High-tech identification devices could produce reams of data on law-abiding citizens -- but may be useless in fighting terrorists ... [more]

Post-combat syndromes are not unique to the Gulf war, but have arisen after all major wars over the past century ... [more]

A new report calls into question research published last year by the prestigious journal Nature, which claimed that local "creole" corn in remote areas of Oaxaca, Mexico had been contaminated by DNA from genetically-altered varieties ... [more]

Starting next year, Hong Kong plans to introduce a digital ID card complete with a digital replica of the cardholder's thumbprint (registration required) ... [more]

If you're planning to live as long as possible, you may want to cut back on sleep. On the other hand, sleep deprivation leaves you grouchy, irrational and accident prone. It's a tough call ... [more]

Irradiated food fight: When consumers are asked whether they would buy food that's been treated with radiation to rid it of potentially deadly bacteria, most still prefer to take their chances on conventional foods ... [more]

Persistent mistrust of doctors and hospitals and religious misconceptions may explain why more people do not become blood and organ donors, according to a US study ... [more]

The human face of "designer babies": A British newborn is doubly precious to her parents: for herself and for the blood from her umbilical cord, which could save her brother's life ... [more]

Thinking too much about eating healthy can make you very sick indeed ... [more]

The Botox paradox: There's nothing wrong with self-improvement, says Maureen Dowd, except when it literally becomes self-effacement (registration required) ... [more]

Nature has been a hidden casualty of war for thousands of years. But the past century of bloody conflicts has been particularly hard on the environment ... [more]

Evidence of the Pentagon's interest in manipulating mother nature abounds. How come the public knows nothing about it? ... [more]

In praise of the unnatural: We can only romanticise nature because we no longer live at its mercy, argues Patrick West ... [more]

Military spinoffs have transformed civilian life. The momentum right now may be running in the other direction ... [more]

Carver Mead -- physicist, inventor, and geek god -- revolutionized PCs with his chip designs. Now he thinks he's doing the same for digital photography (registration required) ... [more] ... [more]

Sex on the brain: Is a liking for dolls or a love of rough-and-tumble all in a child's genes? Where do sex differences really come from? ... [more]

Sea lion savvy: Two California sea lions are making waves in scientific circles and showing that animals do think ... [more]

Whatever happened to the Darwin Wars? Are Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Pinker still having at it? And what is all the fuss about, anyway? ... [more]

Will drug scandals at athletic events eventually be replaced by gene scandals -- as competitors secretly boost their bodies with DNA for endurance or speed? ... [more]

Is human evolution finally over? Scientists are split over the theory that the Western lifestyle has brought natural selection to a standstill ... [more]

Natural randomness in the world's climate system may have caused the frequent, fast and fleeting returns to warm conditions during past ice ages, say two scientists working in Germany ... [more]

Staying Alive is a unique thought experiment which aims to discover the deep intuitions people have about personal identity. Results so far have been intriguing and counter-intuitive ... [more]

The sunken cities of Egypt: Two ancient cities recently found buried under sand and water near the mouth of the Nile reveal that today’s thriving coastal cites could well meet the same fate ... [more]

Nearly every global environmental indicator has worsened over the last decade, say the authors of the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World report. They liken the deterioration of the health of the planet to "slow-motion terrorism" ... [more]

The advance of science, not the demotion of religion, will best counter the influence of creationism, says Michael Shermer ... [more]

Embarrassment can kill, says Dr Ann Robinson, but it may help to remember that those intimate details are a family doctor's stock-in-trade ... [more]

Good ideas are worth money, so why are people giving them away for free? ... [more]

Accidental genius: What turns a good idea into the next insanely great thing? Inspiration, perspiration, and the law of unintended consequences ... [more]

The concept of race is biologically meaningless, says leading geneticist Steven Rose ... [more]

Body and soul: The first great bioethics debate began 2,000 years ago, with a clash between the scalpel and the cross ... [more]

Scientists examining the work that influenced Charles Darwin have rediscovered the details of what may have been the world's first ecological experiment ... [more]

Out of the frying pan, into group therapy: A new US Supreme Court ruling could release more former sex offenders into the community. For these ex-cons, the end of detention marks the beginning of intense counseling ... [more]

It's not just the "poster children" for endangered species that are at risk -- and some scientists argue that we may be focusing too much on cute creatures and not enough on the ugly ducklings ... [more]

The race to find new uses for genetic discoveries is hindering the usual exchange of information among university researchers, as geneticists try to protect their findings from possible competitors ... [more]

Plug and play people: What we want out of people these days is the same thing we want from our computer accessories, says Annalee Newitz: no installation required, no introductions or context necessary to interact with them ... [more]

The Antarctic climate is definitely changing -- but scientist are blowing hot and cold over exactly what is going on ... [more]

Is ET out there? Are humans the most important species on Earth? And what can your answers to those two questions tell you about yourself? ... [more]

Kabul session: A primer of scientific misinformation to thwart evildoers ... [more]

One Iranian woman has a dream -- to give her compatriots the tools to they need to fight for a cleaner environment ... [more]

Since the publication of The Sceptical Environmentalist, Bjørn Lomborg has been branded a traitor by the environmental movement, and hailed as a prophet by opponents of "the green religion." Whatever the truth of the matter, he's having fun in the spotlight ... [more]

It is time to calculate what it will take to provide a satisfying and sustainable life for everyone into the indefinite future, says Edward O Wilson -- starting with population control ... [more]

Chronic pain is seriously undertreated, largely because doctors are reluctant to prescribe -- and patients are reluctant to take -- the drugs that are best able to relieve persistent pain (registration required) ... [more]

The search for bodily remains at disaster sites such as Ground Zero in New York suggests that sometimes the desire for tangible proof of someone's death extends well beyond a purely rational need for certainty ... [more]

Planet hunters: A new breed of astronomers is scanning the skies. Among them they have discovered over 70 planets in orbit around other stars -- and some of them are quite astounding ... [more]

Recent research on sexual infidelity has scientists recasting the role of Casanova ... as a woman ... [more]

A scientific advisory panel report says that the US should ban cloning aimed at making new human beings because it's unsafe for both mother and child ... [more]

The science of surprise: Can complexity theory help us understand the real consequences of a convoluted event like September 11? ... [more]

Our bad habits are good for us, says Peter Marsh -- or at least better than our obsession with the new religion of health ... [more]

Researchers working to unravel the human compulsion to get high have found that many commonly used prescription drugs might be effective in helping addicts kick the habit ... [more]

The US government's clumsy handling of anthrax exposed the weaknesses of a public-health system gone off the rails. Can it be set right? ... [more]

Test tube forests: Scientists are rapidly developing technology for genetically engineering fast-growing supertrees. It makes good economic sense, but what about the environmental repercussions? ... [more]

Racism is not hard-wired into the brain, and a little coalition-building can help people lose their racist tendencies, researchers say ... [more]

Public money, private code: The drive to license academic research for profit is stifling the spread of software that could be of universal benefit ... [more]

Stealing the sun: Humans gobble up 32 percent of the total solar energy captured by land plants. How much more can we use without upsetting the Earth's ecology? ... [more]

From scientist to saint: does Darwin deserve his very own international day of celebration? ... [more]

The FDA has recently approved the first ever US study of Ecstasy as helpful medicine, a move that flies in the face of increasingly punitive Ecstasy laws ... [more]

Forget bioterrorism. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that urban sprawl is a drastically greater threat to our lives, health and safety ... [more]

The catfight over lynx fur: US biologists say they put fur of rare lynx in US forests to test the limits of laboratory analysis. Others see a hidden agenda ... [more]

In a fast-moving world of gene therapies, is the US Food and Drug Administration past its use-by date? Is a timid bureaucracy costing lives? ... [more]

The technothrill is gone: After Sept. 11, we know digital wizardry can't save the world -- or even distract us from horror. But don't trash those gadgets yet ... [more]

Some reports about Charles Bishop, the 15-year-old who recently flew a small plane into a Florida skyscraper, suggest that his actions may have been part of a pattern of suicides attributable to the acne medication Accutane. But the numbers just don't add up ... [more]

Looking for life elsewhere is a tough task for human or robot. But the scientific skill and tools to search for, detect and inspect extraterrestrial life are advancing rapidly ... [more]

So you're an environmentalist; why are you still eating meat? ... [more]

Physician, wheel thyself! Regular exercise is good for us -- so why do so many doctors waste time crawling around inner cities in cars, rather than pedaling the cure? ... [more]

You're probably scared of hackers, with good reason. But don't forget the good stuff they've done ... [more]

A mammoth undertaking: Can genetic science bring extinct species back to life? And if it can, should we let it? ... [more]

Empathy is second nature to humans -- but are we the only species to feel others' pain? Frans de Waal thinks not ... [more]

What's the best way to get kids all fired up about science? Start by teaching them Grossology, Sylvia Branzei's science of the disgusting ... [more]

Animal rights campaigners are calling for stricter controls on cloning following the news that Dolly the sheep has arthritis ... [more]

Exorcising Einstein's spooks: Is there another layer of reality beyond quantum physics? ... [more]

Smacked out: Believers say a little-known drug called ibogaine eases heroin cravings and withdrawal, but it is far from gaining official acceptance as a treatment for opiate addiction ... [more]

The word made flesh: Today we can read human and ape genetic legacies. In 50 years, we could resurrect the past, says Richard Dawkins ... [more]

People can function with bits of their brains removed, but not completely. Michael feels an overwhelming flood of empathy. Stuart feels nothing ... [more]

Boys + sex - education = crisis. Suzi Godson, a leading author on sexual behaviour, reveals the story behind a recent British survey, and warns that schools aren't telling male pupils what they need to know ... [more]

New discoveries are rewriting the history of a continent. A single stone blade has forced archaeologists to consider whether people first came to North America by water, not land ... [more]

This century may be a defining moment for the cosmos, says Martin Rees. If humans do not destroy themselves they may spread beyond the earth into a universe that could last almost forever ... [more]

Saucers full of secrets: Decades after Washington's fabled UFO invasion, witnesses, skeptics, and true believers are still asking: "Where were you in '52?" ... [more]

If life is intolerable, is it better not to have existed? Can non-existence be superior to life? Is there a universe of possible people who never came to be? ... [more]

A father's love -- or the lack of it -- has as much influence on children as the love of a mother, and its effects can be even more far-reaching ... [more]

From the results of an annual Alaskan betting contest to sightings of migratory birds, ecologists are using a wealth of unusual data to predict the impact of climate change ... [more]

A new report from the US National Academy of Sciences concludes that greenhouse gasses and other pollutants could trigger large, abrupt and potentially disastrous climate changes ... [more]

Calculating man's impact on the planet is difficult. Are we on an environmental even keel or hurtling towards a global crisis? ... [more]

The story of the lost city of Atlantis has fascinated academics and romantics for thousands of years. But one leading expert has finally admitted the truth: it never existed ... [more]

All those millions of pretty, twinkling Christmas lights significantly increase electricity usage -- and emissions from fossil fuel powered power plants. Merry Christmas! ... [more]

Weird science: an affectionate salute to the weird and wonderful in the world of international scholarly research during the past year ... [more]

Recent genetic evidence shows that there are not one but two species of African elephant. Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger discusses the molecular findings, the fossil record, and the implications for conservation strategies ... [more]

Can Depo-Provera destroy your sex life? Thousands of women blame the long-lasting birth control injection for ruining their libidos and causing deep depression ... [more]

The US Environmental Protection Agency has asked science advisers to help determine whether it should use industry data gathered from human tests to help set limits on pesticide levels in food and water ... [more]

There's a fresh theory to explain the sudden disappearance of urban cultures ranging from ancient Troy to the Maya of Central America: killer earthquakes ... [more]

In a judgment that could save the lives of 50,000 babies next year alone, a South African High Court Judge has ruled that the government must make a vital drug available to HIV-infected expectant mothers ... [more]

Strong visuospatial skills may lie at the heart of smarts ... [more]

Pain, the disease: What can be done when chronic suffering is more than a symptom? ... [more]

A healing haze? As politicians debate the potential merits of medical cannabis, scientists search for new ways to deliver this old drug ... [more]

The physics of gridlock: What causes traffic jams? The depressing answer may be nothing at all ... [more]

The ancient Mayans did not routinely indulge in human sacrifice after all -- and the evidence is in the graves of medieval European monarchs ... [more]

Divided we stand: Why decentralizing is the best defense against terrorism ... [more]

Why are bad marriages worse for women? The answer may lie in differences in the way men and women process emotions ... [more]

Males are programmed to react badly under pressure, according to a UK study ... [more]

Next time you're stuck in a crowd, have some patience with your mobile-gossiping neighbours. They're just indulging in some high-tech social grooming ... [more]

Why do ostensibly sane humans (and other creatures) find themselves compelled to take dangerous risks? For the fame and the sex, of course ... [more]

Reknowned primatologist Frans de Waal urges psychologists to embrace Darwin, but he's concerned by the simplistic way many social scientists approach evolution ... [more]

A French court has ruled that disabled children can sue doctors over not having aborted them, sparking widespread debate over the right not to be born ... [more]

Medical science has a newly prominent sickness -- apotemnophilia, the compulsion to amputate one's own healthy limbs. Why do pathologies sometimes arise as if from nowhere? And can the mere description of a condition make it contagious? ... [more]

Do men really deserve their reputation as emotional mummies? Maybe. Maybe not ... [more]

Recent US anti-terrorism legislation has given the FBI's online snooping tool, Carnivore, increased powers. Privacy activists are warning against "automatic surveillance capabilities that Stalin could never have dreamed of" ... [more]

While religious observance in the US has returned to pre-September 11 levels, there is instead a rising, slightly desperate, faith in technology ... [more]

The ape of things to come: Chimpanzees will be extinct in the wild within the next 20 years -- and that's bad news for their distant cousins, humans ... [more]

The nuclear family: Can the same process that introduced the mitochondrion and chloroplast to the cell explain where the nucleus came from? The question remains one of the big unsolved mysteries in biology today ... [more]

Up in smoke: Was Britain's response to foot-and-mouth disease a case of 'overkill'? And will the countryside ever recover from the cure? ... [more]

Fortified flour fracas: Compulsory folic acid supplementation may hold risks ... [more]

Free drugs from your faucet: How did tiny amounts of nearly every drug under the sun get into our drinking water -- and what are they doing to us? ... [more]

As AIDS swamps one rural South African hospital, the epidemic is transforming how the institution functions, how its employees live, and even what they believe (registration required) ... [more]

Land of the oil-free? September 11 was an attack on the American way of life. But maybe that way of life -- and especially the extravagant use of oil -- needs a makeover anyway ... [more]

Understanding the complex pathways from gene-to-brain-to-cognitive processes-to-behaviour is like a detective story, in which tiny, seemingly unimportant clues play a vital role in the final outcome ... [more]

Music, the brain, and Williams Syndrome: A rare disorder offers insight into the genetic basis of cognition (registration required) ... [more]

With many of the world's nations involved in an escalating confrontation, where will we find the attention and resources to begin to restore our wetlands, our soil, and our atmosphere? Perhaps it's time to listen to the inner mamma bear ... [more]

Maverick meteorologist Richard S Lindzen keeps right on arguing that human-induced global warming isn't a problem ... [more]

The next pig thing: Canadian researchers have developed a genetically-engineered pig that could help clean up a major source of water pollution -- but environmental groups want the swine squelched ... [more]

Why do humans crave nature? And why do we feel such a need to say it with flowers? (registration required) ... [more]

Can a mathematical idea have political import? What is this much-invoked thing called the axiom of choice? Is it really devoid of political significance, or could it turn out to pack a hefty ideological punch? ... [more]

Timothy Stamps insists there's much more to health than distributing medicine -- and he accuses the WHO of ignoring the needs of developing countries and trying solve every problem with drugs ... [more]

Gentlemen: ignorance is bliss and gullibility is the best policy. And your baby looks just like you, honest ... [more]

Could parthenogenesis be the solution to the ethical dilemmas of therapeutic human cloning? Or is it just another example of science going too far? ... [more]

Stone Age terrors still stalk modern nightmares: our fear of werewolves is 10,000 years old ... [more]

US officials are warning that cyberattacks are likely as retribution for the US campaign in Afghanistan. "Bin Laden may have his finger on the trigger," says one expert on terrorism, but "his grandson might have his finger on the mouse" (registration required) ... [more]

Your friends are just not normal. But that's okay -- no one's friends are normal ... [more]

If SETI ever does discover a message from an alien civilization, how can we ever hope to decipher it? Ancient languages may point the way ... [more]

Baloney detection, revisited: Professional skeptic Michael Shermer continues his exploration of the borderlands of science ... [more]

India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Even before the war over terrorism inflamed the region, the Indian subcontinent was the most likely place for a nuclear conflict ... [more]

Lonely ... with an only: Secondary infertility -- the inability to conceive or carry to term a second child -- is on the rise, and can take a surprising toll on the emotions and lives of sufferers ... [more]

GM crop research has been slow to reach the hungry Third World, and many desperate voices are calling on richer countries to use genetic science to wage an all-out war on famine ... [more]

Mosquitoes evolve rapidly in response to global warming, US ecologists say. But less flexible animals could face extinction ... [more]

Many of the world's freshwater lakes face death by pollution, resulting in catastrophe for the human populations that depend on them, warns the World Water Council ... [more]

Although well-intentioned, exercise promotion may tend to raise women's risk of developing eating disorders ... [more]

The psychological aftermath of 9/11: Anxiety is on the rise and experts estimate that 100,000 people in New York alone are at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder ... [more]

Canada's buffer against numerous infectious diseases is at risk because of growing opposition to vaccination based on fear, myth and philosophical objection ... [more]

Rocket men: A somewhat motley crew of test pilots, dot-com dropouts, dreamers and others will change space travel as we know it. Or not ... [more]

The stimulant Ritalin -- used to help children with ADHD -- may cause long-term changes in the brain, similar to those seen with amphetamine & cocaine ... [more]

Is the anthrax vaccine safe? Is it effective? The answer depends on whom you ask ... [more]

Scientists are puzzling over the source and behaviour of visible light coming from very near a black hole, and suggesting that the light may be generated by a process similar to one used in laboratories to create computer chips ... [more]

The fear of finding a lump is enough to keep some women -- even those believed to be at increased risk of breast cancer -- from performing the potentially life-saving breast self-exam ... [more]

Want to help save the planet? Don't fly ... [more]

The inventor of the mouse doesn't want much -- just to use computers to network our collective brainpower and change the world ... [more]

Everyone knows by now that inappropriate use of antibiotics inevitably produces resistant bacteria. But how exactly does that happen? ... [more]

A United Nations report warns that the world's population could skyrocket to nearly 11 billion people by 2050 if women do not gain better access to education and health care ... [more]

Many scientists think it is physically impossible for homeopathy to work -- but new research suggests how remedies could possibly have an effect ... [more]

Better killing through chemistry: Buying chemical weapons material through the mail is disturbingly quick and easy ... [more]

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder -- sometimes, being ugly is attractive too ... [more]

Chantek is fluent in sign language, understands spoken English, and is a budding artist. He's also an orang-utan, whose learning capacity is raising tantalising questions about the similarities between humans and our primate relatives ... [more]

Islam's rich scientific history and intellectual traditions bely the image cast by recent world events, scholars say (registration required) ... [more]

The science of evolutionary psychology is often derided, and has even been called fascistic -- but, insists Colin Tudge, it's an important theory ... [more]

Humans are causing evolution on a grand scale -- and it is costing us hundreds of billions of dollars each year, says a Harvard biologist ... [more]

Could men become extinct? A leading expert on men's health thinks so ... [more]

... Or perhaps males will just become unnecessary (for reproduction at least), as a cocktail of chemicals working as artificial sperm paves the way for parthenogenesis ... [more]

Between antibiotic resistance and the hygiene hypothesis, maybe it's time to consider making peace with germs ... [more]

When you're asleep, your mind uses dream time to process information for use when you're awake. Or maybe not ... [more]

A potentially devastating condition that has affected hundreds of thousands of people, and even altered the course of world history remains unchecked, warns neurologist James F Toole. The condition? Mad leader disease ... [more]

Space should be teeming with civilizations, but where are they? And is this proof that we're alone in the galaxy? ... [more]

Panic is contagious, spread by rumours and false alarms -- and it is a greater threat to the public than any other act of terrorism ... [more]

Evolutionary healing: In an evolving world of medicine, the principle of natural selection may be worth a closer look ... [more]

Being born of uncertain gender is the last sexual taboo. But why is the truth about 'intersex' so often kept from the patients themselves? ... [more]

You humans, you can't help but monkey around! At last, an experiment has proven baboons have abstract reasoning. Will people use theirs now and stop the experiments? ... [more]

Forget everything you've ever heard about chemical and biological weapons, says a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert. Even under ideal conditions, they're just not all that effective ... [more]

Never too thin? A recent study concludes the skinnier the better when it comes to avoiding health problems, but critics say fitness is more important than weight ... [more]

The triumph of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft means that NASA is back on track. But on track to where? ... [more]

Blowin' in the wind: A combination of offshore wind farms and serious national conservation measures could potentially free the US from the need to import 6 million barrels of oil every day ... [more]

Why are so many otherwise sensible people responding to the current anthrax hysteria by stockpiling Cipro? Anxiety and the prisoner's dilemma, says John Allen Paulos ... [more]

Louise Halestrap has become an expert in alternative toilets -- and in British bathroom sensibilities. Her goal? To change the habits of a nation, and if possible the entire Western world ... [more]

Breast-cancer screening programmes may not save lives, according to a new examination of clinical trials. The controversial findings have led to calls for a re-evaluation of the routine monitoring procedure ... [more]

The solution to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle could be as strangely simple as bubbling seas ... [more]

After the success of the genome, scientists have got carried away with the study of 'omics. They all want 'omes of their own ... [more]

From survival tales to attack predictions, rumours go flying at the click of a mouse. The cyberage version of spinning yarns reflects a need to create order in a chaotic world ... [more]

Astrophysicist J Richard Gott, III calls it a simple matter of survival. Author Sid Goldstein figures it's all about economics and environmentalism. And legendary physicist Freeman Dyson thinks dead planets need a human touch. One thing they all agree on: it's time to leave this planet ... [more]

Professor Stephen Hawking's latest fears for the future of humanity have been criticised by academics for being contradictory and little more than hype for his forthcoming book ... [more]

By giving doctors permission to lose their curiosity about which bacteria do what, modern medicine has spun off not an archaic and irrelevant detail of practice, but a regrettably timely one (registration required) ... [more]

The growing influence of the internet on education could damage children's ability to learn, warns leading psychologist Susan Blackmore ... [more]

Even as the human-cloning debate plods noisily along, animal cloning speeds quietly onward ... [more]

Health and human society: Wealthier nations are not always healthier, and efforts to improve health can be swamped by the effects of inequality and conflict ... [more]

We can't help but fixate on bad news, says British psychologist Elaine Fox. Evolution has left us anxious by nature ... [more]

Japan's Riken institute has an ambitious programme of neuroscience research. The aim is to create machines capable of thought, memory and intuition. Will humanity benefit? ... [more]

More executions, fewer deaths? A new study suggests that the death penalty deters many more murders than most people thought plausible. Senior research analyst and death-penalty opponent Iain Murray considers the evidence ... [more]

The big split: Can it really feel that good? And why do women often fare better after a divorce? ... [more]

The roots of conflict Is western culture better than any other? Umberto Eco argues that what is important is not superiority but pluralism and toleration ... [more]

Joining an elite is not just a matter of who you know, but of who knows who you know, and who they know. Who knew? ... [more]

Talkin 'bout an evolution: In the aftermath of Sept 11, we must choose our next steps carefully, or risk extinction ... [more]

Little heat on the prairie: Climate forecasts are blowing hot and cold again, with US research showing that grasslands respond to rising temperatures by cutting their production of carbon dioxide ... [more]

Corporate leaders and politicians who argue that New York City must rebuild Lower Manhattan as quickly as possible are getting support from an unlikely quarter: environmentalists (registration required) ... [more]

Baloney detection: Here are five ways to draw boundaries between science and pseudoscience ... [more]

Even as investigators descend on Florida in response to a death from anthrax, it is smallpox that has biological weapons experts losing sleep ... [more]

Conservation of Bialowieza -- the last primeval forest in Europe -- could lead to the revival of animal and plant species across the continent's lowlands ... [more]

Some scientists claim the living world is governed by laws based on fractal geometry and on the sizes of organisms, leading to a wide-ranging debate about this biological 'theory of everything' ... [more]

Ted Nelson is an Internet visionary who is credited with coining the term hypertext, but he is highly critical of what the Net has become ... [more]

The intensive farming that feeds the world's growing population is one of the leading threats to biodiversity. Enter ecoagriculture, which is helping to ward off problems like rice blast in China and overgrazing in Brazil ... [more]

A simple approach to treating trauma has reported remarkable results in the wake of tragedies in Oklahoma, Bosnia and Littleton. Will EMDR help in New York? Probably not, if past experience is anything to go by ... [more]

Economists largely hold national institutions responsible for ongoing poverty in some tropical countries. But the real culprit may be warm winters ... [more]

Emotion may be as important as reason in deciding moral dilemmas ... [more]

Climatologists have had trouble squaring computer simulations of earlier climates with geological data -- casting doubt, some say, on global warming predictions. But what the geological record says today may not be what was originally recorded ... [more]

In ancient times, scholars wondered if women were doomed to be perpetual children. These days the question has become, are men even human? Maybe it's something in the water ... [more]

Pottery found in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga suggests that the first Polynesians may have journeyed thousands of miles across the ocean as early as the first millennium BC ... [more]

Rogue males: What makes young Muslim men turn to terrorism? Leaders such as Osama Bin Laden know just how to distil a deadly fuel from their anger, excess energy and religious devotion, writes Lionel Tiger ... [more]

Nuclear materials would be difficult for terrorists to use, says the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and a suicide attack on a nuclear power plant would not necessarily lead to disaster ... [more]

Psychotherapists are ethically obliged not to have sex with their patients, but "surrogate partners" are supposed to. That's the simple but loaded dichotomy at the heart of the little understood therapeutic practice of sex surrogacy ... [more]

Activism, hacktivism, and cyberterrorism: How the Internet is being used to influence foreign policy ... [more]

Doctors examine art: Art appreciation classes significantly improve student doctors' skill at diagnosis ... [more]

Physicists have long puzzled over the fact that friction varies with compressive force, but not with the amount of contact area between two surfaces. Now mathematicians are offering an all-new explanation ... [more]

Kiss and make up: Like animals, humans can transcend their capacity for violence ... [more]

We are assaulted by chemical scents from all sides and can no longer trust our own noses, says AS Byatt ... [more]

A French scientist has pinpointed a possible location for Atlantis, on an island close to the Strait of Gibraltar ... [more]

The family dog might be the key to helping kids weather divorce with a minimum of harm ... [more]

US researchers have shown that gender-bending chemicals in pesticides, herbicides and pollutants can disrupt chemical signals in plants -- which could in turn affect human and livestock fertility ... [more]

The promise of microgravity science carried out on the International Space Station anytime soon is highly doubtful, given program cost overruns and subsequent budget cuts ... [more]

The search for biological underpinnings of depression is intensifying, and new findings promise to yield better therapies ... [more]

Feeding the future: With human population above 6 billion and rising fast, the need to protect agricultural land and to increase food production has become critical. Does sustainable agriculture have the answers? ... [more]

From Leroy Hood, the man who gave us the automated DNA sequencer, comes a whole new approach to the study of life ... [more]

The psychology of terror: Is our tendency to experience fear and anxiety genetic? UCLA professor emeritus William R Clark explains ... [more]

Religion's misguided missiles: Promise a young man that death is not the end and he will willingly cause disaster, says Richard Dawkins ... [more]

The environmental issue from Hell: Global warming is the great moral crisis of our time ... [more]

Politicians cite patriotism; pastors credit a more celestial source. But biologists say the altruistic impulse is a nondenominational gift, the birthright and defining characteristic of the human species (registration required) ... [more]

Forget any worries about gene modification and industrial agriculture. The real trouble with our food began long, long ago -- when we first took up farming ... [more]

There's a real chance that we'll soon have an effective pill for the common cold. But aren't over-the-counter medications sufficient for something so harmless? Well, yes and no ... [more]

Can belief in God kill you? Religious beliefs are not always a source of comfort during ill health: they may actually increase your risk of dying ... [more]

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Pain Society say far too often kids suffer needless pain from injuries, illnesses and medical procedures, and doctors should do more to prevent or relieve their discomfort ... [more]

Gay and lesbian parents do at least as good a job as their heretosexual counterparts, according to a US survey ... [more]

Famed British physicist Stephen Hawking warns that if humans hope to compete with the rising tide of artificial intelligence, they'll have to improve through genetic engineering ... [more]

Not everyone thinks Stephen Hawking knows what he's talking about when it comes to prophecies of cyborg takeovers ... [more]

When most people picture a terrorist, they imagine a sadistic madman. But experts say terrorists are most often rational, logical, deliberate and deeply devoted to their cause ... [more]

Naughty children are 'born from anxiety', according to an ongoing study of thousands of women and children in the UK ... [more]

Stop ignoring the data: An interdisciplinary group of scientists argues that we know behavior is crucial to health -- and it's time health research and interventions reflected that ... [more]

Forgiving others is a valuable gift for yourself, and even the most grudge-bearing people can learn how to do it ... [more]

All in the mind: Fact or artifact? the placebo effect may be a little of both ... [more]

The outcome of an intellectual battle over two elderly African women could provide the answer to the mother of all riddles that has been puzzling scientists since the early 1900s ... [more]

Reproducing ourselves is all very well -- but some technologies threaten the basis of what it is to be human, says Eva Hoffman ... [more]

Contrary to some claims, males are "not emotional mummies," says US researcher Dr Mark Kiselica ... [more]

Work with lab animals is a staple of scientific research. But what if the mouse, in its bleak, confined laboratory cage, has gone quietly insane before the experiment even begins? ... [more]

Children are natural scientists, says Sanjida O'Connell, and it requires scarcely any 'teaching' to put their native curiosity to good educational use ... [more]

There is too much hype about health on the Net, and too much scaremongering as well. But the Web can still be a valuable tool -- if you know how to use it ... [more]

Researchers have recently discovered the gene mutation that gives humans a natural resistance to malaria and shows how disease shapes the genome ... [more]

Detox demystified: Supporters say the practice rids the body of 'toxins.' But many scientists counter there's scant evidence it does anything the body can't do on its own ... [more]

Is that study really necessary? Economics helps decide if we should put our money where researchers' mouths are ... [more]

20 years on, what do we know about the genesis of the AIDS epidemic? It's an obscure tale of humans, chimps and a virus (registration required) ... [more]

Recent experimental evidence has hinted that the shape of the universe may be found among the ten orientable Euclidean 3-manifolds ... [more]

A Canadian professor has identified a phenomenon causing countless boating deaths and accidents: Experienced Skipper Syndrome ... [more]

A do-it-yourself approach is needed to kick-start a humans-to-Mars programme, says a Mars exploration guru ... [more]

The interface between science and government might be best described as a semi-permeable membrane: small, reassuring ideas get through, but large, uncertain ones don't ... [more]

Death by overwork: As pressure intensifies in our working lives, scientists are discovering that stress not only triggers illnesses but may be a killer in its own right ... [more]

With all the shouting over the fate of human embryos in the latest round of the stem cell debate, one fact has been obscured: very few frozen embryos are ever likely to be made available for research ... [more]

Medical studies have finally proven the Freudians wrong. Mental illness, it seems, is not all in the family ... [more]

A mark of a civilised society is how well it looks after the old, the sick, the vulnerable. On the evidence of this week's BMJ several countries aren't doing so well (registration required) ... [more]

The world's human population looks set to decline -- but not for another 70 years (and 3 billion people) ... [more]

Happiness is more than just a warm glow, says a US psychologist -- it's firmly rooted in culture. And not everyone wants to be happy anyway ... [more]

Genetically engineered crops are poised to give human society its biggest sustainability gain in almost 100 years ... [more]

Kyoto begins at home: UK environmental scientist David Reay says that simple lifestyle changes and home improvements could go a long way towards meeting the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions ... [more]

How an electric car can save the world -- and civilisation (registration required) ... [more]

It's the chromosome that has for years been relegated to the sidelines of science. But now it's Y and mighty, providing the answers to some very big cultural questions -- and putting a match to political time bombs ... [more]

A new Japanese study says computer games make children anti-social. But the culprit isn't aggression -- it's an under-stimulated frontal lobe ... [more]

India's salt wars: Gandhi's defiance of the British salt ban created an enduring symbol of purity and independence. Now locally-grown salt is threatening the health of tens of millions of India's children ... [more]

Scaling the mind's scaffolding: Without the ability to organize our world, we are trapped. With it, we know no limits ... [more]

Patients considering euthanasia are worried less about unbearable pain than about the social and emotional disintegration that accompanies terminal illness (registration required) ... [more]

Mathematicians are edging closer to proving that all numbers get an equal slice of pi ... [more]

A black mud from Africa helps power the new economy. Coltan is needed for the wireless world. Coltan helps perpetuate Congo's civil war (registration required) ... [more]

'A good death' is not for everyone. Terminally ill patients and their families are increasingly being encouraged to make treatment decisions. But for some, this only worsens their anguish ... [more]

Several large, new studies address recent vaccine scares and investigate how parents' individual decisions against vaccination might increase other children's risk of disease ... [more]

Bluefin tuna found to be crossing the Atlantic mean revised policies may be needed to stop overfishing ... [more]

Birth on a knife edge: Delivery by Caesarean section is now touted as the celebrities' choice. Disturbingly, more and more women feel they are being rushed into this, too ... [more]

Symphony in utero -- what about pre-natal music? ... [more]

A leading brain scientist has warned that world leaders and senior politicians should be tested regularly for signs of madness ... [more]

Believing that "rhinotillexomania" is an activity that merits "closer epidemiologic and nosologic [sic] scrutiny" The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has published a comprehensive report on the popular practice of nose picking ... [more]

Big Tobacco's No.1 lie is that "everyone knows" the risks ... [more]

Why can't you be more like them? Physical barriers to carbon-copying people are falling but psychological pitfalls lie in wait ... [more]

Human guinea pigs: When people put their bodies on the line in medical trials, can they be sure that scientists aren't cutting corners or preoccupied with stock prices? ... [more]

Certain brain structures may atrophy long before any symptoms of Alzheimer's surface, offering the chance to diagnose and possibly treat the disease early on ... [more]

Cosmic rays from deep space may be destroying our ozone layer, according to a new study ... [more]

Born under a thin star: Eating disorders may be linked to the season of your birth ... [more]

He's not hairy, he's my brother. Here's one way to look at the man-versus-ape conflict in the new movie Planet of the Apes: It's civil war ... [more]

Does prescribing heroin to addicts flout medical ethics, or save lives? ... [more]

The digital divide: the cybercitizen must be visible, credible and creditable in the virtual world. This does not happen for the new social underclass ... [more]

A pandemic fueled by poverty: A doctor says the fight to get cheap AIDS drugs to Africa is misguided: These people need water, food and basic healthcare ... [more]

To clone or not to clone? As two scientists threaten to begin human cloning "within weeks," scientists and ethicists say the two are acting irresponsibly ... [more] But Panayiotis Zavos defends their actions ... [more]

Do animals think? Donald Griffin, the founder of cognitive ethology, thinks so -- and he's spent three decades gathering evidence to back his claims ... [more]

Tech wars in meat space: Both police and protesters are wondering if new technologies used by both sides will turn street protests into bloodless, but ultimately meaningless rituals ... [more]

Shark attacks reinforce our cultural hysteria, but they should really remind us how much we have to learn about sharks and their waters (registration required) ... [more]

The political placebo effect: John Allen Paulos argues that President Bush and others use an approach similar to the placebo effect to advance their policies ... [more]

A rail worker's case of toxic encephalopathy has led to federal investigation of a US university's review board, and raised ethical questions about litigation and human research (registration required) ... [more]

Planet of the Apes shows what can happen when you're on the wrong side of the species divide. Roger Fouts argues that it's time to rethink our prejudices against our hominid cousins ... [more]

Adherents of intelligent design theory are doing what creationists have long done, but this time, the advocates are "academics and intellectuals." Darwinist author Robert Wright considers ... [more]

Shopper's little helper: If shopaholics get help in the form of a pill thanks to a university study, and the study was funded by the company that manufactures the pill, everybody wins, right? ... [more]

The rhythms that bind women: Researchers from disparate fields have found that female menstrual hormones influence much more than reproduction ... [more]

"Somebody who claims not to believe in evolution ... is ignorant, stupid or insane." Richard Dawkins insists his 1989 statement is based on truth, not arrogance or intolerance ... [more]

The advice that a watched pot won't boil may ring true in your kitchen, but in the quantum realm, anything goes ... [more]

Why should moral considerations carry such weight in our lives? ... [more]

Why do wartime women, American presidents and Peruvian spider monkeys produce more sons than daughters? Biologists have a neo-Darwinian theory ... [more]

Poison Valley: Is workers' health the price we pay for high-tech progress? ... [more]

Feed a fever: The secret to taming the flu might lie in a better diet, not new and improved drugs ... [more]

Americans and Chinese recall memories very differently, indicating the impact of culture on 'self-concept' ... [more]

Big Brother, foiled in Yellowknife, doesn't understand why town residents would be upset by security cameras ... [more]

Research is giving new insights into the X and Y chromosomes. It seems the distance between Mars and Venus might be closer than previously thought (registration required) ... [more]

There's no need to feel guilty about high blood pressure -- it's not caused by stress or depression after all ... [more]

Global warming may be a problem that we can sweep under the rug -- or, more precisely, under 10,000 feet of ocean ... [more]

Here's yet another possible culprit in the dramatic rise in childhood asthma: too much margarine, not enough salmon ... [more]

Researchers have found that children of any age tend to give false reports of experiences, when fed misinformation by their parents ... [more]

Since the advent of ultrasound scanning, expectant parents in India have found a foolproof method to avoid paying an expensive dowry for daughters -- abort female foetuses ... [more]

All the President's pills: Researchers theorize that Abraham Lincoln was for years being poisoned by mercury-laden pills he was taking for depression ... [more]

How coal got its glow back: Thanks to new US energy policies, Big Coal is back. But can it be taught to behave? (registration required) ... [more]

A team of scientists spent the past six months examining where the 2000 US presidential election went wrong. Now they know how to fix it ... [more]

After years of lethargy, the international community has declared war on AIDS. But the agreement may fail those most in need of care ... [more]

Helping the blind to see may mean implanting a chip in the retina, in the brain -- or perhaps even on the tongue ... [more]

Dissident or Don Quixote? Challenging the HIV theory got virologist Peter H Duesberg all but excommunicated from the scientific orthodoxy. Now he claims they've got cancer all wrong ... [more]

Don't blame the pacifier -- it's a symptom, not the cause of breastfeeding problems, according to a recent study ... [more]

Secondary school students should be examining the moral and ethical issues of science as well as the science itself, says a report from one of the world's biggest medical charities ... [more]

I haven't been abducted by aliens yet, but it's only a matter of time before my brain convinces me I have. Bring it on, Brain, I'm ready for you ... [more]

Too many rules, staff cuts and radically altered goals put NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a course destined for failure, while a brain drain has robbed the lab of decades of wisdom. But there are signs of hope ... [more]

The mental health problems of one musician may have led to the creation of jazz ... [more]

In the past, children born intersexed were treated with surgery. Now some doctors believe such treatment may be unnecessary ... [more]

An organic pesticide fails the rat tests, too. But that doesn't really mean anything, because our food has never been safer ... [more]

Technology will not solve the problem of the darkness in the human soul. For that, perhaps we need fewer computer programmers and communications scholars and more poets ... [more]

An analysis of 34 years of breast self examination studies has raised questions about the effectiveness of the technique (registration required) ... [more]

It's no longer enough to be attentive, loving and caring to children. Parents who want the best for their offspring, say experts, must become amateur therapists ... [more]

The 21st Century will be the century of the environment, says Dr Keith Suter. We don't have any other choice ... [more]

There is something almost quaint about politicians arguing over the question as to when 'human life begins' when nobody seems to have figured out what life is in the first place ... [more]

Throughout history women have tried to choose their child's sex. High-tech methods get better results than traditional fertility rituals, but raise thorny ethical issues ... [more] ... [more]

The ubiquitous finger-length studies are intrinsically controversial and inconclusive, but they can move us a step closer to a genuinely thoughtful exploration of human behavior, sexual and otherwise ... [more]

Reaping the benefits of cereal: Modern civilization owes its existence to ancient farmers ... [more] But agriculture itself may exist due to the opioids in the grain (.pdf file) ... [more]

What is postpartum depression? And what distinguishes the baby blues from something more malignant? ... [more]

Everyone knows the Egyptian pyramids were built by thousands of slaves, laboriously rolling massive stone blocks into place with logs and levers. Or maybe it was just a few guys playing with kites ... [more]

Evidence is accumulating to indicate that cannabinoids can be effective against pain and nausea. But are they really the best choice? (registration required) ... [more]

Mum always said you were special -- but deep down, you don't really believe it ... [more]

Many scientists are now saying the only way for us to meet fundamental human needs while preserving the life support systems of the earth is to embrace "sustainability science" ... [more]

Genetically modified crops are spreading so rapidly that it has become almost impossible for consumers to avoid them (registration required) ... [more]

It is so hard to find time: Rival factions of scientists -- not to mention philosophers -- are at odds over time and space ... [more]

A bill before the US Congress, intended to discourage China's death row organ trade, would bar Chinese physicians from visiting the US for organ and tissue transplant training. But prominent US doctors oppose the move ... [more]

Have no fear. Despite all the hype, genes aren't everything ... [more]

The Tower of Babel is crumbling: Soon, nobody will speak Eyak. The same goes for as many as 6,100 languages that experts say will become extinct this century. For the moment, Fortran seems safe ... [more]

A British scientist studying heart attack patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead ... [more]

The concept of forests as carbon sinks has given some comfort to environmental policy-makers. But their optimism may be unfounded ... [more]

Paying students for good performance works. So what's wrong with bucks for marks? ... [more]

Ethicists have warned against an unwarranted rush to develop commercial genetic tests for susceptibility to conditions such as Alzheimer's ... [more]

Rocket experts say controversial rocket engineer Steve Bennett's latest plans are not only suicidal -- they could kill off the burgeoning British rocket industry ... [more]

Those who have suffered from postpartum depression know all too well just how flimsy this thing we call sanity is ... [more]

A stiff challenge to spacetime: Magnetic fields flatten curved space and cast doubt on the Universe's youth ... [more]

Eastern and Western science, skeptic Michael Shermer observes, are put to political uses in both cultures ... [more]

Repeating history at our peril: Two reports in Science have pointed the finger squarely at human activities as the culprit in ancient mass extinctions in Australia and the Americas ... [more]

If we hope to prevent a Brave New World, we should ban human cloning now ... [more] But a ban on cloned embryos could sound the death-knell for life-saving research ... [more]

A mind for consciousness: Somewhere in the brain, Christof Koch believes, there are certain clusters of neurons that will explain why you're you and not someone else ... [more]

You catch a glimpse of someone you think you know, but who you haven't seen for years. You're not sure it's them, then something -- a raise of the eyebrow, a toss of the head -- gives them away ... [more]

Strides have been made in easing the pain of death for adults, but few dying children benefit from the advances ... [more]

People versus nature: Fencing off "biodiversity hot spots" will not protect species from extinction, warns a new report ... [more]

We may never be able to say for certain who or what is real on the Web. Online hoaxes shouldn't be cause to abandon Netizens in need (registration required) ... [more] But it's only wise to apply the old saw, "Trust -- but verify." ... [more]

A new Danish meta-analysis has found no evidence that placebos have powerful clinical effects -- although of course patients may think they do (registration required) ... [more] But the study itself is not as statistically powerful as it seems at first glance ... [more]

When scientific pronouncements clash with economic and political priorities, science invariably takes a back seat -- but sound science is the best basis for political policy ... [more]

The wildlife next door: The wonders of nature are all around us, and to understand them is to want to save them (registration required) ... [more]

An engineer in New York wants to capture energy produced by cars, cattle and people in concert with the gravitational pull of the Earth. Energy experts are dubious ... [more]

"The growth of trees is founded on supremely subtle, deeply hidden mysteries," wrote G Kenig, in a mid-nineteenth-century Russian journal article with a distinctly modern message ... [more]

You win some and you lose some, they say. But if you find yourself playing a losing game, you might be able to turn that situation around by playing two losing games ... [more]

Members of the Artemis Society, a private venture dedicated establishing a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon, have now set their sights on the creation of a colony on Europa, Jupiter's icy moon ... [more]

What is more mind-boggling than the universe? Imagine -- we're halfway through 2001, and we don't yet know how big the big house is nor what, if anything, lies beyond ... [more]

One UFO expert says that aliens don't get around much anymore. But what if that's just what they want you to think? ... [more]

"You are getting sleepy. Verrry sleepy ..." Though often denigrated as fakery or wishful thinking, hypnosis has been shown to be a real phenomenon with a variety of therapeutic uses -- especially in controlling pain ... [more]

Global warming is a natural geological process that could begin to reverse itself within 10 to 20 years, predicts one US researcher ... [more]

Estonians are betting on the gene pool ... [more]

In an age when most people seem obsessed with bringing order to their lives, a Web site in Switzerland has been offering a very different service: providing the world with randomness (registration required) ... [more]

A recent study found that children who drank probiotic milk had fewer respiratory and ear infections and fewer sick days than children drinking plain milk (registration required) ... [more]

The Hubble Space Telescope has completed its measurement of the Hubble constant, a measure of how fast the Universe is expanding and a cornerstone of our understanding of the age and size of the Universe ... [more]

The long dark night of AIDS has just begun, but the United States and others of the world's wealthier nations can offer a measure of humanity in their response to this crisis (registration required) ... [more]

Want to live to a happy, ripe old age? Well, if you really, really want to, you've got a good chance of achieving it ... [more]

Can female desire be packaged in a pill? The 'medicalization' of women's sexuality is raising hopes, fears and questions ... [more]

Hush! Think twice and then think again before you speak the intolerable truth: Perhaps we were not all created equal ... [more]

Boy meets girl: Your sense of being male or female is far more fluid than you think. Perhaps two sexes aren't enough ... [more]

The idea that everything from Mozart's operas to Monday morning blues is due to biochemical action is just too outlandish and demeaning for most of us to live with. Yet the evidence continues to mount ... [more]

Three views of genetics: the enthusiast, the visionary, and the sceptic (registration required) ... [more]

The Scopes Monkey Trial is more than 75 years old but the effort to compromise the teaching of evolution in US public schools seems ever-young. Today, creationism is back under a new, politically astute guise ... [more]

The bug that ate the burger: E. Coli's twisted tale of science in the courtroom and politics in the lab ... [more]

According to a top Russian space official, women would cause disharmony on a manned flight to Mars ... [more] Of course, that opinion could be influenced by the long-standing ban on sex in space ... [more]

Despite what your mother says, warm cola won't hurt you, reports a 12-year-old researcher. It still tastes icky, though ... [more]

Are you an artistic youngest child? An intellectual only? Maybe not, but there's a good chance that your place in your family's birth order has influenced your choice of career ... [more]

Space station Alpha, increased robotic exploration and the Space Launch Initiative all will get humans to Mars faster than relatively small studies and planning, according to NASA chief Dan Goldin ... [more]

It might one day be possible to slow the progress of prion diseases -- by injecting patients with yet more prions ... [more]

Preschool children who receive severe physical discipline by their parents stand a good chance of engaging in overly aggressive behavior during their school years ... [more] And aggressive toddlers are likely to remain that way well into their teens ... [more]

What's beautiful about the human genome project, according to Jim Austin, is how completely it puts the lie to the traditional monastic image of science ... [more]

Educating young people about sexuality and contraception is more effective at delaying sexual experimentation and preventing teen pregnancies than programmes urging them to "just say no" to sex ... [more]

There are definite advantages to being mildly autistic ... [more]

Till sickness do us part: Men are more likely than women to divorce their spouses when the spouse suffers a serious illness such as brain cancer, suggests a new study ... [more]

A well-timed one-two punch from viruses may be the cause of multiple sclerosis ... [more]

Laughter really is the best medicine. A good dose of comedy can relieve depression and help your body fight disease ... [more]

The cell phone cancer scare has spawned numerous protective devices for the wary. Never mind whether they actually work (registration required) ... [more]

Prying eyes: A report on the global spy network Echelon recommends all Europeans use encryption and open source software ... [more]

You may not be who you think you are. All the habits and preferences that make you you may be no more fixed than the dial on a radio -- and they are all dependent on a certain section of your brain ... [more]

In a diagnosis that helps explain the confusing and contradictory aspects of the cosmos, God -- creator of the universe and longtime deity to billions of followers -- has been found to suffer from bipolar disorder ... [more]

With the right encouragement, your mind can convince the body to heal itself. What is the mysterious force that conventional medicine seems to have forgotten? ... [more]

Has technology really given us automated memories? And does the reality of the Web leave our intellect floundering in marshy weeds of fluff? ... [more]

The EU roundly condemned the US withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty on global warming. But EU member states are by no means sure to meet their own Kyoto targets ... [more]

Everybody knows the image of the mad scientist, but not many appreciate the importance of crazy ideas to the scientific process ... [more]

US scientists have questioned the accuracy of the fruitfly genome sequenced by Celera Genomics, saying there are numerous and significant discrepancies ... [more]

The United States, as the world's biggest polluter, has a special responsibility to help fight global warming and promote conservation, says UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ... [more]

"We may be looking for a swarm of bees while standing on a railway line with the train coming." In other words, it's time to stop fussing about asteroids and start fretting about comets ... [more]

The fertility technique that produced the world's first genetically modified babies has come under criticism following the disclosure that two of 18 fetuses created with the method had a rare genetic disorder ... [more]

The Maya were talented astronomers, religiously intense in their observations of the sun, moon and planets. New research shows that the heavens may have brought about their demise ... [more]

The living dead: Some of your friends and millions of other creatures may not even be alive, says a Polish researcher ... [more]

Before the discovery of planets in other solar systems, scientists thought Jupiter formed slowly, like a mammoth gaseous pearl around a solid center, but one researcher now believes the birth of planetary giants takes only a short time -- maybe even centuries ... [more]

Time twister: Before your children are born, their children could turn up at your door. Ronald Mallett thinks he knows how to turn the future into the past ... [more]

Almost no-one is immune to the urge to twist the truth for financial gain -- even self-proclaimed "good guys" like the anti-pesticide lobby ... [more]

Orthodontists reap the benefits of the trend toward early treatment -- but do their young patients? ... [more]

The DNA bomb: GM crops are in the crosshairs now -- you may be next ... [more]

The gender police: When a baby's anatomy doesn't fit our notions of male or female the surgeons often step in. But are we simply pandering to social prejudices? ... [more]

Can US soldiers use Virtual Reality to help save the Balkans? The stakes are high -- and so are the hopes ... [more]

In 1995, 35 trillion American children were gunshot victims. It must be true -- it's a statistic ... [more]

"Egypt is the gift of the Nile," wrote Herodotus in 450 B.C. But without the influence of the desert, the great civilization of ancient Egypt might never have flourished as it did ... [more] ... [more]

A British scientist has discovered a possible connection between the role of essential fatty acids in human evolution and mental illness. This new hypothesis could change evolutionary biology and the way we treat schizophrenia ... [more]

Can homosexuals go straight? One study says yes, with counseling. Another study says no, and it's often wiser not to try ... [more]

The greatest villain in the development of math anxiety is anxiety itself ... [more]

Humans could venture to Mars in 20 years or less, according to NASA chief Daniel Goldine. His comments made orbital space flight sound positively last century ... [more]

Physicist and golf enthusiast Raymond Penner has come up with the low down on long drives ... [more]

Let us rid society of genetic defects, says DNA pioneer and Nobel prizewinner Dr James Watson ... [more]

What ever happened to play? Kids are spending less time frolicking freely, though fun is one of the best things for them ... [more]

The sequencing of the human genome doesn't answer our questions; it impells us to revisit them. The lesson of the Human Genome Project so far is that the world does not exist to teach us lessons ... [more]

Gender-bending chemicals that mimic the effect of oestrogen are common in sunscreens, warns a team of Swiss researchers. And they are building up in the environment ... [more]

Parents' sexual orientation does matter, it seems: Children raised by homosexual couples have more relaxed attitudes toward gender roles and sexual preferences than their peers from more traditional families ... [more]

The speed of light can't be exceeded. Everyone has accepted that. Everyone, it would seem, except Houshang Ardavan ... [more]

A recent study suggests that natural selection is continuing to exert a powerful influence on human reproduction, with women becoming more genetically predisposed to having babies earlier in life ... [more]

The Louisiana state Legislature has branded Darwin a racist, casting him in the same league as Hitler. A science educator says it's going to be a rough year for evolutionists ... [more]

Love of wild nature is a universal human possibility, perhaps even a human instinct. Are we foreclosing that instinct, that option, not just for our grandchildren, but for the next human species? ... [more]

Studies in confusion: A basic understanding of what constitutes good research can help consumers sort through conflicting health reports and claims that sound too good to be true ... [more]

The secret of the Stradivarius violin's dazzling sound has come out in the wash. It's all due to some commonplace chemicals -- including ones used in washing clothes and making pickles -- mixed up by the local drugstore chemist and applied to protect the wood ... [more]

DNA analysis is explaining where "racial difference" comes from -- and what it does and doesn't mean. The study of the genetic archaeology of race has become the most contentious area in modern science ... [more]

Animal cruelty is a warning sign that an individual could be involved in other violent crimes, according to a recent study ... [more]

In search of God: Are our religious feelings just a product of how the brain works? New Scientist meets the researchers who are trying to explain our most sacred thoughts ... [more]

Colleagues of the controversial child-care expert Jay Belsky say he hogs the limelight, has an agenda and makes alarmist claims that the evidence doesn't support ... [more]

Superbug genes are getting into the soil and the water -- will humans be next? ... [more]

UK scientists say a thousand years' climate records show the last three decades were the millennium's warmest -- a change which is unlikely to have been caused by natural phenomena ... [more]

Genetics pioneer James Watson isn't frightened of the misuse of genetic knowledge. He fears that people will reject genetic screening because they are afraid to know what the future will hold ... [more]

Keep on packing your paperbacks when you are taking a long-haul flight, because supersonic planes are never going to take off ... [more]

Will space tourist Dennis Tito's trip to the International Space Station usher in a new era of paid space travel? ... [more]

The hunting techniques of some Melanesian islanders owe less to the precticalities of food-gathering than to the politics of fishing for compliments ... [more]

Bio-apocalypse now: All it takes to start germ war is a lone fanatic with a washcloth ... [more]

Geniuses are made, not born -- or so parents are told. But can we really train baby brains, and should we try? ... [more]

Paul W Ewald argues that most cancers, heart disease and other chronic ills stem from infections. If correct, his theory will change the course of medicine ... [more]

Sex, lies and monogamy: At the heart of all long-term relationships lies a fundamental deception -- disguised fertility ... [more]

Shouting at your kids can damage their brains, as well as hurting their ears, according to US child psychiatrists ... [more]

The universe may have been started not by a Big Bang, but a Big Bump ... [more]

Genes or environment? Nature or nurture? The debate over what shapes intelligence is as old as Western civilisation. But it could be heading for closure ... [more]

Modern human beings might have outlasted relations such as the Neanderthals not because of genetic advantages, but by a slice of "cosmic luck" ... [more]

It's the day-care scare, revisited. If the care of anyone but Mom really makes kids more aggressive, why don't researchers propose reform? And if it doesn't, why don't they stop scaring us? ... [more]

The rise in the number of jobs requiring brain not brawn may be behind a rise in IQ levels in many Western countries ... [more]

The world needs more greenhouse gases to stop the Earth sliding into a new Ice Age, according to two UK scientists ... [more]

It bends. It stretches. It turns you into a human pretzel. But can the power of yoga really cure what ails you? ... [more]

Putting children to the test: Clinical drug trials on babies and youths can save lives. But drug trials are always risky, posing a dilemma for parents ... [more]

Green is good for you . Psychologists' research explains the mental and physical restoration we get from nature -- and has important implications for how we build our homes, work environments and cities ... [more]

"Sorry" is such a little, simple word -- but actually saying it can be fraught with complications ... [more]

Stem cell research has gained momentum with the announcement that excess fat could help rebuild bodies. But are the claims flabby? ... [more]

Fast food forests: Even changes that seem to be good for everyone can render an ecosystem less diverse ... [more]

Thomas Bayes wanted to prove that it was God's will that humans should be happy. Instead, he has helped father the world's most annoying paperclip, and is helping computers to learn from the past ... [more]

There's safety in numbers: Biodiversity is not just good for the soul -- it could help save the planet from global warming too ... [more]

The problem with evolutionary psychology, says Steve Jones, is that its practitioners try to use it to understand the uniquely human ... [more]

Sex and science: Are women discriminated against in the lab? Or are gender imbalances due to intellectual differences? ... [more]

A strange repulsive force of dark energy pervades every nook and cranny of the universe. Not only does it push against the master force of gravity -- it has also set astrophysicists' heads spinning ... [more]

It takes a village healer: Medical anthropologists believe traditional medicine can help remedy Africa's AIDS crisis. Are they right? ... [more]

Television is becoming invisible, taken for granted as an appliance, a piece of furniture, a storyteller -- even a member of the family ... [more]

An extraordinary puzzle is spreading like wildfire among mathematicians, consuming vast amounts of brain space and Internet bandwidth as it goes (registration required) ... [more]

There's gold in them thar colliding neutron stars ... [more]

The lapidary inscription on the temple to Apollo at Delphi -- "Know Thyself" -- can sometimes be rotten advice ... [more]

For nearly a century, fingerprint evidence has been the superstar of the courtroom. All that may be about to change ... [more]

Read messages on Internet sites touting the possibility of human cloning and a trend emerges: Many people don't understand what cloning means, much less how risky animal experiments show the technology to be today ... [more]

The list of candidates in our solar system most likely to show signs of life has narrowed in recent months. A hot debate now rages over where and how best to conduct the hunt for life ... [more]

Oxbridge academic and Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen has spent a lifetime fighting poverty with economic analysis rather than activism ... [more]

The US air traffic control system is crumbling. Can digital technology save it? ... [more]

The omega man: Gregory Chaitin shattered mathematics with a single number. And that was just for starters ... [more]

A recent report by the American Cancer Society calls into question the popular belief that synthetic chemicals are creating a cancer epidemic ... [more]

Ebola, mad cow disease, foot and mouth: these are just a few of the biological battlegrounds here on Earth. But they also offer insight into the difficulty of protecting our planet from diseases from outer space ... [more]

Leaving aside the moral and ethical issues, there's one good reason to ban human cloning: we don't know how to do it properly yet ... [more]

Baby loves me; baby loves me not. Is there a biological guarantee that your child will love you? Not yet ... [more]

Deadly import: A study of World War II troop movements supports the idea that an infectious agent causes leukaemia ... [more]

How generous are you? Are you sure? Most people are better judges of others' moral character than their own, says a recent study ... [more]

The question of whether to vaccinate against foot and mouth disease is crucial -- New Scientist unravels the arguments ... [more]

Does the data from the Human Genome Project tell us anything meaningful about human nature? Kenan Malik thinks that the nature vs nurture debate has always missed the point ... [more]

Dr. Coco Toudji is a widely-known traditional healer in Africa who swears by his herbal remedy for AIDS. But is he a shaman or a sham? ... [more]

Sometimes the best ideas are the really, really, really old ones. Contact with nature appears to have benefits for human health ... [more]

Shakespeare’s lost play: Queen Mary Jane? Did the Bard really smoke pot -- or is it another case of great story, lousy science? ... [more]

The risks on the table: More than half the foods in US supermarkets contain genetically modified ingredients. Have they been proven safe for human consumption? ... [more]

Who were the First Americans? The tale usually told is of hunters walking across an arctic land bridge from Asia. It may have been a little more complicated than that ... [more]

The quest to decode the "Book of Mankind" has been hailed as the Holy Grail of medicine, yet history has seen terrible things done in the name of genetics ... [more]

The FBI wants to start a massive polygraph screening programme to weed out spies. But do polygraphs actually detect lies? ... [more]

Scientists taking part in a pan-European experiment seeking to finally lay to rest the homeopathic "memory" effect appear instead to have found statistically robust evidence for the effect -- though they have no idea why ... [more]

Depending on your point of view, the salvation or scourge of modern agriculture has germinated on millions of acres of North American cropland as genetically modified organisms have taken center stage ... [more]

As research on so many fronts becomes increasingly dependent on computation, all science is becoming computer science (registration required) ... [more]

The Nobel sperm bank wasn't the first scheme to breed "superbabies." Slate takes a look at the weird history of "positive" eugenics ... [more]

Someday soon, say developers, household robots will really be among us. But first, they have a thing or two to learn from some cute and cuddly toys (registration required) ... [more]

Scientists are evaluating a 'New Mars,' thanks to the constant stream of data relayed from the Mars Global Surveyor ... [more]

For women who've lost that loving feeling the idea of a physical fix is very seductive. But is it the answer? ... [more]

A UN report says that effective technologies and measures to combat global warming are available and relatively cheap. What's needed is the political will to implement them ... [more]

Tai Chi, in an ancient Chinese exercise that combines slow movement with meditation, may help relieve the pain of arthritis ... [more]

Eating the kiwi -- New Zealand's national icon -- could be the only way to save the endangered bird, according to an Australian conservationist ... [more]

The US President's decision not to force coal-fired power plants to reduce carbon dioxide output has been widely condemned as a major blow to international negotiations on climate change ... [more]

Some languages are more 'dyslexic friendly' than others. Compared to Italian and Finnish, English is downright hostile ... [more]

Nanotechnology is no longer just a vision -- or a nightmare of "grey goo" -- but achieving its potential will require a whole new kind of science ... [more]

The last few years have seen a renaissance in astrobiology. The rapid-fire discovery of a few dozen extrasolar planets will do that. Ditto the finding of what could be fossil bacteria in a hunk of Martian meteorite ... [more]

More than modules are at stake as NASA struggles to contain the growing cost of building the International Space Station. Scientists hoping to use the station as a cutting-edge research platform are suddenly unsure how much science the ISS will be able to accomplish ... [more]

Playing fair: Are you breathtakingly mean or perfectly equitable? New Scientist investigates where our sense of justice comes from, and how we can shape it ... [more]

Once an environmental bully, China is quietly moving to clean its coal-tarnished image. So why play down its environmental achievements? ... [more]

Dreams of a red planet: Where the human mind is concerned, Mars exerts a pull stronger than gravity -- the tug of imagination ... [more]

Transplanting fetal brain cells to treat Parkinson's disease remains an attractive therapy, according to international experts who severely criticise a US trial which produced "disastrous" results ... [more]

It is too soon to know if the Darkness in El Dorado controversy will be anthropology's Armageddon. But Napoleon Chagnon himself seems destined to remain the lightning rod ... [more]

It's the most underrated of senses, but smell can affect your love life and your career -- and may even be the key to weight loss ... [more]

People with inherited diseases are preparing a global challenge to pro-lifers over the future of medical research ... [more]

Yes, you can buy happiness... but it doesn't come cheap ... [more]

It may seem far-fetched to say that the psychological impact of childhood abuse can physically alter the brain, but there is growing evidence that this is the case ... [more]

Scientists who present their subject as a set of arcane mysteries betray their own craft, argues Colin Tudge ... [more]

While perfect pitch is a rarity even among musicians, new studies suggest that everyone may begin life with this remarkable talent ... [more] But if your singing sends people scurrying in search of earplugs, you can blame your ancestors. They were probably tone deaf too ... [more]

A computer science professor says he has found a way to send coded messages that cannot be deciphered, even by an all-powerful adversary with unlimited computing power. And, he says, he can prove it ... [more]

Steady on! Engineers for London's Millennium Bridge have finally worked out how pedestrians made it wobble so alarmingly -- and it's strikingly simple ... [more]

Firm measures by world governments to limit carbon emissions would send the oil and coal industries into a decline, says a UN draft report. But other sectors -- and the entire planet -- would benefit immensely from the move ... [more]

Global warning: Species from birds to butterflies are doing strange things, and a new report blames the behavior on the Earth's rising temperature. ... [more]

From chatting over steaming coffee at the local diner to helping out at a neighborhood bake sale, community involvement offers the kind of pleasure money can't buy, and may be key to finding happiness ... [more]

GM is passé -- genomics is the latest scientific fashion ... [more]

Yes, size does matter. Gene tweaking has led an evolutionary biologist to a startling hypothesis -- that shorter people may be genetically primed to live longer than their loftier counterparts ... [more]

After being batted around the solar system like some cosmic softball, a rock from Mars ended up on Earth thousands of years ago. Now, 17 years after its discovery, it has become science's most studied stone ... [more]

Where is the next Einstein? A band of influential scientists is warning that genius is being stifled by populism. Nobody seems to be listening ... [more]

An assault on evolution: The religious right is taking its best scientific shot at Darwin with 'intelligent design' theory ... [more]

Soot, the familiar black residue that coats fireplaces and darkens truck exhaust, is seldom included in global warming analyses -- but it may be the second biggest contributor to the process ... [more]

Foot-and-mouth is as serious to animals as a bad cold is to human beings. So why the panic in the UK? It's not a matter of health or animal welfare but of economics ... [more]

The link between deep vein thrombosis and flying may be in the same position held 30 years ago by smoking and cancer -- interesting correlation but where's the causation? -- but researchers are closing in ... [more]

Was the Anna Kournikova email worm really that bad? Should it be illegal? ... [more]

Public awareness of evolutionary psychology has received another boost with the publication of a theory that we were born to queue ... [more]

The start of the era of the dinosaurs seems have been as violent as its end ... [more]

What questions would you like to ask a panel of scientists from 2100AD? Here is one physicist's pick of the pack ... [more]

Breastfeeding really is the best way to keep babies healthy -- even if their mothers are HIV-positive ... [more]

Surrounded by the beeps, hums, buzzes, trills and shrieks of our high-tech lives, it's no wonder some people feel they're drowning in noise. Could quieter technology help engineer a more civilised life? ... [more]

It's all about retail therapy: If you want consumers to tell you what really motivates their choices, you've got to hypnotise them first ... [more]

The Allan Hills meteorite from Mars is peppered with tiny magnetic crystals that on our planet are made only by bacteria.So is there life on Mars? ... [more]

In the beginning was the bit ... And after that came the rest of the weird quantum world ... [more]

We are often baffled or bemused by science, but without scientists asking 'What if?' we will never discover ourselves ... [more]

It's enough to make your skin crawl. Lice, fleas and bedbugs in their thousands are crawling all over our nice clean homes, their numbers swelling by the moment as they gorge on our blood ... [more]

Momentous magnetism: The first crack may have appeared in the theory that has ruled particle physics for 30 years -- and a whole new array of particles could result ... [more]

We're not out of the woods yet. A year into the new millennium, the Y2K doomsayers are still shivering with dread ... [more]

Why are atheists so different from the overwhelming majority of humankind? ... [more]

A British team say that many lives could be saved if a simple mathematical quality-control technique was applied to the performance results of hospitals ... [more]

Scientists say that oestrogen affects spatial intelligence. Some would claim this explains why women can't read maps ... [more]

The human genome has been labeled the "Book of Man" and its decoding likened to the search for the Holy Grail. So it's not surprising that many think of the genome as the secular equivalent of the soul ... [more]

Early modern humans may have won hand over fist over their Neanderthal cousins ... [more]

At an all-day conference on MDMA, ravers, researchers and anti-drug crusaders debate its pros and cons. The consensus? Just say maybe ... [more]

Interactivity is the buzzword of the digital age, but who really wants to interact with a hunk of silicon? Affective computing promises technology with a human touch ... [more]

On Earth, the older generation constantly exasperates younger folks by having all the answers and telling how it used to be. Now some astronomers are looking to an older star to predict the future of our own young Sun ... [more]

The most famous youthful romance in the English-speaking world, that star-crossed love of Romeo and Juliet, was a tragedy. Life for real adolescents in love is no comedy either ... [more]

James Watson reckons there's still a lot to learn in the play of genetics, even if the cast has recently been cut ... [more]

In the animal kingdom, the males got all the looks – or so the story goes. But many females are also winners in the beauty stakes. Why do we ignore them? ... [more]

Why are girls growing up so fast? And is it stress, pollution or obesity that's to blame? ... [more]

Looking for aliens can be cold and lonely work -- just ask Agent Mulder. Better yet, ask Frank Drake ... [more]

We drink it, we generate electricity with it, we soak our crops with it. And we're stretching our supplies to the breaking point. Will we have enough clean water to satisfy all the world's needs? ... [more]

Our genes are doomed. Unless we embrace genetic engineering, we will inevitably become a sickly and frail species ... [more]

As we understand more about the brain, will it alter society’s views on the moral and legal responsibilities of individuals? Are criminals mad, bad or ill? ... [more]

Are we alone? Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees discusses one of the most fascinating questions in science ... [more]

Maybe it is time to start building machines which can learn and be raised in the same way as humans -- time to give them real intelligence ... [more]

The key to compromise between the pro- and anti-animal experimentation camps lies in the three Rs of animal research (free registration required) ... [more]

New York is the capital of commerce, finance and art, ground zero for the bagel and home to the Yankees and the Mets. So why not the centre of philosophy, too? ... [more]

A fiercely combative philosopher, Mary Midgley is Britain's foremost scourge of 'scientific pretension' and a staunch defender of religion -- although she doesn't believe in God ... [more]

Mike Lynch is leading the very 21st-century race to make computers think for themselves. But the formula he's using is 250 years old, the brainchild of a clergyman who died in obscurity ... [more]

Earthquakes are usually measured by the amount of energy they release. But a US scientist has a different means of assessing natural disasters ... [more]

A game called suicide: Teacher and author Jane Katch talks about the value -- and necessity -- of violent play ... [more]

Contrary thermometers: How can the globe be warming, and yet not warming at the same time? ... [more]

If we continue to heed experts rather than common sense, we shall have more disasters like BSE, argues Colin Tudge ... [more]

Scientists are on the verge of re-creating creation. Then what? ... [more]

Must men fight? Tests on fighting fish and angry wasps suggest that machismo may be biologically inevitable ... [more]

Spare the box and improve the child: Decreasing television and video game time can reduce primary-school children's aggressive behaviours (free registration required) ... [more]

Hark ye to the cyborg: Despite the 'creepy' factor, being kept alive by a machine sure beats being dead ... [more]

Evidence of a sudden Antarctic temperature rise thousands of years ago is heating up the debate on global warming. ... [more]

What's in a name? The question has puzzled writers and thinkers for centuries. Now scientists have provided an answer: our names reveal the nature of our genes and our biological past ... [more]

The obsessive pursuit of health and happiness is a sort of madness to which modern society is particularly prone (free registration required) ... [more]

A leading US science museum has quietly shaken up the universe by suggesting that Pluto is really just a lump of ice ... [more]

According to studies of the animal world, monogamy is unnatural ... [more]

Imagine you had cells in your brain that could read other people's minds. Well, you do. And they could be the key to human language, empathy and even society ... [more]

Global warming may heap disasters on Africa, according to the UN's top environmentalist ... [more]

It's a long and bumpy road from phrenology to the US public school system ... [more]

Environmental groups say that world leaders who have failed to agree on how to stem global warming are unlikely to find help from George W Bush ... [more]

When it doubt, go back to the basics. That's just what cosmologists have done to explain why our universe seems to be accelerating ... [more]

Smile! The quality of your future may depend on it ... [more]

A report from Johns Hopkins University says we're running out of time to protect the environment ... [more]

'Gene chips' are reshaping basic biology -- but scientists fear they may soon drown in the data ... [more]

The earth's atmosphere is warming faster than expected, and evidence is mounting that humans are to blame, according to a UN report ... [more]

There is no such time as the present ... Or if there is, it's different for each of us ... [more]

15 years after the Challenger disaster, the man in charge of NASA's space shuttle program says he guards against "go fever" as if it were a plague ... [more]

Researchers have identified the brain's 'oops' centre ... [more]

Richard A Muller, the father of the idea that a sibling of the sun periodically wreaks havoc on Earth, finds inspiration in catastrophes ... [more]

Under a ring of water in a sealed chamber in the middle of the New Mexico desert lies the heart of the Z Machine -- one of the world's best hopes for achieving fusion ... [more]

Streams of ice may have shaped the long channels that riddle the surface of Mars ... [more]

Humans are finite; numbers go on forever; eventually numbers must become lethal in their sheer immensity. But just how big is a killion? ... [more]

Can a virtual reality shrink really cure you of your fear of flying? ... [more]

Just when you thought it was safe to stop evolving, culture and technology may be itching to wipe out your genes ... [more]

Psychologists are divided over whether genius is innate or acquired. Nobody has yet been smart enough to figure it out ... [more]

Keeping your chin up and rolling with the punches may sound like trite clichés, but according to a team of Finnish researchers, doing so could save your life ... [more]

Feral machines and robots with animal cunning -- just what you want to turn up in your letterbox on a rainy day ... [more]

What are dolphins hiding behind those grins? Maybe one day they'll get the chance to tell us ... [more]

Can a virtual reality shrink really cure you of your fear of flying? Or will hell in a head mount replace hell on earth? ... [more]

Contrary to many predictions, IQs are rising -- and it appears that TV may be a big part of the process ... [more]

HTML revolutionized the way information is shared worldwide. Can a new language do the same for the human genome? ... [more]

Temperature data from scientific buoys scattered across the Pacific Ocean are raising doubts about the validity of one of the most important tools used to track global climate change ... [more]

Fears over the possible health effects of depleted uranium weapons have prompted NATO and the EU to hold crisis meetings ... [more] But is the scare just a case of voodoo science? ... [more]

Want to plan the perfect party? First, consult a mathematician (better yet, invite one!) ... [more]

God has been banished from the realms of modern science. Filling the gap is 'nature', whose balance must not be disturbed ... [more]

If the concept of dark matter gives you a bit of a headache, reach for your painkillers now. Theorists attempting to explain some of the "missing mass" in the universe now say there may be entire galaxies that are dark ... [more]

Ozone may be responsible for the asthma epidemic in children ... [more]

Discovering it took luck. Developing it into a successful product took all of Du Pont’s technological resources -- and the zeal of one French entrepreneur. It wasn't easy to make Teflon stick ... [more]

Music to soothe the soul: Since Hippocrates, melody and rhythm have been recommended as a cure for what ails us ... [more]

Worried about your little girl's weight? Restricting her food choices may be the worst thing you can do ... [more]

Humpback whales' undersea songs are so similar to human music that some US researchers say the marine mammals are true composers ... [more]

A scientific version of the Hippocratic oath might encourage researchers to think twice before publishing false results ... [more]

Can you tell craft from engineering? And why would you want to? Here's how, and why ... [more]

Recipe for a simple (and misleading) morality tale: Take one very complicated public health issue; add a large dose of scientifically dubious rhetoric; dilute out the complexities. Makes great copy every time (free registration required) ... [more]

New information tools could turn the Human Genome Project into pharmaceutical gold ... [more]

If the Jetsons expressed post-war America's subconscious desire to live in an effortless, gadget-filled future, the Microsoft house is today's Internet economy version ... [more]

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. But just what is swing? ... [more]

Bouncing a tennis ball may seem simple, but it's really an exercise in intuitive navigation through mathematical chaos ... [more]

The apparent randomness of the stock market is only skin-deep -- at heart, brokers seem to have a lot in common with sheep ... [more]

It was quite a year in science. The human genome was mapped, the space station took shape and the world didn't end ... [more]

A British scholar has unwrapped the mummy's curse, finding its origins not in ancient Egypt but in 19th-century England ... [more]

If narrative is the true road to revelation, then the decoding of the human genome may be turn out to be the greatest story ever written ... [more]

Impelled by the tragic plight of paralyzed victims of spinal-cord injuries, scientists are moving ever closer to unlocking the mysteries of nerve development and regeneration ... [more]

Can one be both a feminist and a champion of biological determinism? When it comes to differences in sexual behaviour, Professor Helena Cronin sees no real conflict ... [more]

Astonishing fossils found in the remote hills of Liaoning Province, China, are fuelling the debate about the origin of birds ... [more]

Scientists from many disciplines converged this year to decode the script of life in a variety of organisms, from people to weeds. Their breakthrough ranks first among Science’s top achievements of 2000 ... [more]

What if the purpose of voting machines wasn't to get an accurate count, but to randomly choose a victor? Feed looks at the technology of electoral chance, from ancient Greece to Palm Beach, USA ... [more]

It started with a kiss ... From a simple peck to a full-blown snog, who invented this bizarre habit of ours? ... [more]

Cooking 101: The search for the origin of life leads scientists back to the kitchen to discover life's first ingredient ... [more]

Italian archaeologists digging near Pompeii have uncovered startling evidence of an unknown step in the ancient Roman social ladder ... [more]

Massive earthquakes may have caused two ancient Egyptian cities to sink into the Mediterranean ... [more]

Life's struggles for survival once seemed so complex that only a highly sophisticated model running on a supercomputer could predict the outcome. But a new mathematical model can bring population dynamics to the desktop computer ... [more]

Gamma ray bursts may have yet another secret to reveal: quantum gravity ... [more]

Researchers are peering into the minds of babes, trying to advance our understanding of how social cognition, language, and knowledge acquisition are linked in the developing brain ... [more]

Man's best friend is smarter than many people like to think ... [more]

Yes, Virginia, there is a conspiracy -- to overthrow the current scientific establishment, and replace it with a theistic science ... [more]

Stephen Jay Gould has been reflecting on continuity -- from family history to the branching lineage of terrestrial life ... [more]

If the world's plant genetic resources fall into private hands, people in the poor South could face famine and starvation ... [more]

Don't be afraid to indulge your sweet tooth -- after all, chocolate is good for you! ... [more]

Sir Arthur C Clarke, author of the visionary 2001: A Space Odyssey, has a new forecast for the coming century: holiday domes on the Moon; the end of agriculture -- and swimmers bred with webbed feet and built-in snorkels ... [more]

It wasn't the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs, researchers say -- it was the deadly chemical reactions in the atmosphere that did them in ... [more]

Dr. Strangelunch, or: Why we should learn to stop worrying and love genetically modified food ... [more]

Are mathematicians past their prime at 35? Maybe not, but the idea lingers due to an abundance of young talent ... [more]

The presence of extraordinary magnetic fossils in a meteorite from Mars may mean that the planet once hosted primitive life ... [more]

Children tend to perceive scientists as boring, no-fun, middle-aged white men. Who can blame them for wanting to avoid such a dire fate? ... [more]

Game theory sheds new light on age-old conflicts, from animal mating behavior to the never-ending tussle between workers and managers ... [more]

At last we know how much the cosmos weighs -- but we still haven't a clue what most of it is ... [more]

If schizophrenia is not the product of faulty genes or faulty parents, what is it? E Fuller Torrey smells a cat ... [more]

Evidence is building that many US employers hire and fire based on genetic tests; meanwhile protective legislation languishes ... [more]

What Silicon Valley is trying to do now, Cézanne and Picasso achieved decades ago ... [more]

Here is a wake-up call for all those who yawned this morning. You are not tired. The caveman in you just wants to do something new ... [more]

High tech's missionaries of sloppiness: Some computer companies specialise in giving consumers lousy products -- as a matter of policy ... [more]

A childhood in the Caribbean sounds idyllic, but research on the island of Dominica is uncovering some universal truths about how stress harms children ... [more]

What might Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein and Bill Gates have in common? Not just brilliance but a form of autism that is only now being recognised in thousands of highly intelligent people ... [more]

Drugs, therapy, self-help gurus ... Our craving for contentment has spawned a highly lucrative happiness industry. So why are so many of us still miserable? ... [more]

Will we ever be able to communicate with animals? Denise Herzing has been working with dolphins for over 16 years and reviews her research in this area ... [more]

A few little words is all it takes to turn your rational brain to jelly. Fortunately, there is a perfectly logical explanation ... [more]

It's not easy being green ... Is online shopping good for the environment or just a better way to be as wasteful as we want to be? ... [more]

The biotech gold rush is making a mockery of the world patent system ... [more]

Movie aliens tend to resemble us to an improbable degree. If we ever do meet the real thing, chances are they -- and their technology -- will be like nothing on Earth ... [more]

Rock-paper-scissors, lizard style: In the game of life, all mating strategies have a fighting chance for success ... [more]

A glimpse at the deep past hints that carbon dioxide might not always have caused global warming ... [more]