What we learn from our siblings when we grow up has a considerable influence on our social and emotional development as adults, according to researchers from the the University of Illinois and the…

Cancer-initiating stem cells that launch glioblastoma multiforme, the most lethal type of brain tumor, also suppress an immune system attack on the disease, say scientists from The University of…

'Invisibility' has long been a staple of science fiction.  The ability to go unseen has benefits, mostly involving mischief, but there are some ways where being invisible need not involve the…

Filtering Information In The Information Age The Fortean Times appears never to have been mentioned on scientific blogging.com, much less cited as a reference source.  Now, when you have quite…

Mailspam, Webspam, and Freedom of Speech. "given that the e-mail system has gone largely unchanged since 1965,perhaps we should be grateful that it works at all. " -  David A. KarpPCmag.com Spam…

Yesterday evening, he succeeded in convincing his thesis committee to let him out with his PhD in hand. It's now Dr. Rugbyologist - if you thought he was belligerent before, just wait... Hopefully…

The strangest idea for a reality TV show that I've heard to date comes courtesy of Slashdot this morning. "Terminal illness got you down? Does your future seems bleak? Channel 4 and production…

To start off 2010, we're invited to join a new “Hot Topics” feature, which will periodically focus the bloggers on a particular topic. The first Hot Topic is this: The Upcoming Decade in Science…

"The threat is much stronger than its execution" Aaron Nimzovich (complaining to the arbiter of a chess match that his opponent had put a cigar in his mouth, after the arbiter had pointed out that…

 Exciting news just in from Oxford University. A previously obscure lecturer in cinematography has published a book titled The Selfish Dot, in which the author challenges the established view…

Writing in Psychological Sciences, researchers from New York University and Cornell University say they've demonstrated that our desires influence how we see our environments. According to the new…

 People's tendency to match their risk perceptions about policy issues with their cultural values may explain the intense disagreement over proposals to vaccinate young girls against human…

Children have a reputation for driving their parents crazy, so chances are that most people don't become parents for the health benefits. But maybe they should. According to a study conducted by…

 Air flows in one direction as it loops through the lungs of alligators, just as it does in birds, and this breathing method may have helped the dinosaurs' ancestors dominate Earth after the…

In a just-published series of studies involving hundreds of volunteers, University of Georgia and Duke University psychologists say that watching or even thinking about someone with good self-control…

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified neurons in the songbird brain that convey the auditory feedback needed to learn a song. Their research, published in Neuron, lays the…

An excess of a particular serotonin receptor in the center of the brain may explain why antidepressants fail to relieve depression symptoms for 50 percent of patients, indicates a new study published…

The disastrous magnitude 7.0 earthquake that triggered destruction and mounting death tolls in Haiti this week occurred in a highly complex tangle of tectonic faults near the intersection of the…

While people typically blame incompetency when airport security screeners fail to keep dangerous weapons off airplanes or when doctors miss developing cancer tumors, the real culprit may be evolution…

It's interesting that in reading this review the first thing one is struck by is that Sowell is guilty of the very thing he's railing against.  Setting himself up as a individual intellectual…