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Do they need to call in the Internet CSI? – Just as the Large Hadron Collider was powering up, a group of Greek internet hackers were close to getting control of one of the four 12-ton electromagnets that detect what’s going on inside CERN.

They left a long note (in Greek) saying that CERN’s security was weak. Information Age quotes the would-be hackers as saying (among other things) that, “We’re pulling your pants down because we don’t want to see you running around naked looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes.”

But the internet CSI is on the job! More and more, police are analyzing email messages in order to solve crimes and combat terrorism.
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Spend cash! – As financial institutions are failing, right and left, there’s something that?s important to remember during the current recession: There is evidence that people spend less when paying cash than using credit cards or gift certificates, meaning that cash discourages spending, and credit or gift cards encourage it.

Researchers Priya Raghubir and Joydeep Srivastava say, “The studies suggest that less transparent payment forms tend to be treated like [play] money and are hence more easily spent (or parted with.”

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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Do you dream? If you’re a woman, you have more nightmares than the man who may be sleeping beside you.

When 170 volunteers were asked to write down their most recent dream, 30% of the women 19% of men reported having a nightmare, 19% of the men.

Some researchers think that female nightmares may be linked to women?s menstrual cycles. BBC News quotes researcher Jennifer Parker as saying, “The consistent finding in this research was that women report more unpleasant dreams than men?In terms of processing emotional information, women may be more prone to taking unresolved concerns into their sleep life.”

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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Looking at a person’s brain while they are listening to music can yield valuable insights into how the mind works. However, music theorist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis claims the idea that listening to Mozart boosts brainpower is NOT TRUE.

Margulis says, "Studies about music move into the popular media and can get mistranslated, transmitting potentially misleading information." She points to the popularity of the "Mozart effect"–the research that showed improved spatial reasoning after listening to Mozart–as an example of unintentional distortion of scientific research about music.
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