Maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink – how much your brain responds to disgusting images could predict whether you are liberal or conservative.

If you don't want to read any further because this is based on functional magnetic resonance imaging and claims that political leaning is a biological trait, here is the short version and you can just rant in the comments: if you are not grossed out, you are a liberal. The authors feel so confident in the result they say they can predict your politics based on a single image with 95 percent to 98 percent accuracy,   

A research team has produced a detailed working image of an enzyme in the Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) related to the BRCA1 breast-cancer protein. PRC1 regulates cell development and is associated with many types of cancer because enzymes like PRC1 turn on or turn off the activity of genes in a cell by manipulating individual chromosome units called nucleosomes. 

The camera and lens that Wally Schirra and Gordo Cooper carried into space during their Mercury Program flights is going up for auction in a few weeks. 

Wally Schirra, a known camera enthusiast, said the Hasselblad camera they used was held in highest regard by photographers for its superior engineering, craftsmanship, and top-of-the-line quality. He reportedly purchased the Hasselblad 500c camera at a Houston photo supply shop in 1962, and brought it back to NASA for mission use preparation.

An organic compound called limonene provides the pleasant smell of cleaning products and air fresheners but some byproducts of these sweet-smelling compounds could be adding to the air while they remove germs and odors.

By cleaning your house, you could be adding smog and ozone to it. 

Aircraft propelled by beams of light rather than fuel? Laser-propulsion just got a step closer thanks to a new method for improving the thrust systems developed by physicists Yuri Rezunkov of the Institute of Optoelectronic Instrument Engineering and Alexander Schmidt of the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg. 

Currently, the maximum speed of a spacecraft is limited by the amount of solid or liquid fuel that it can carry. Achieving higher speeds means that more fuel must be burned—fuel that, inconveniently, has to be carried by the craft and hefted into space. These burdensome loads can be reduced, however, if a laser—one located at a remote location, and not actually on the spacecraft—were used to provide additional propulsive force.

How can the international community know it is election time in the United States? A whole raft of claims about science and why you should vote one way or the other will be produced. Some people have even claimed politics is hard-wired, which would mean that American Republicans and Democrats are distinct species, having branched off from the rest of the world in 1860.

While biologists laugh at the idea that voting preferences are biological, sociologists, psychologists and political scientists continue to match surveys to science and claim it might be true. What if only tall people voted Democrat and they only married other Democrats? Would that not shape evolution? Democrats would be tall and imposing and psychologists would say they will get their way more often.