Big Brains Can Be a Problem

June 30, 2009
Do we get cancer because we evolved big brains? That's a depressing thought, but it may be true. It's a question that has nagged cancer researcher John McDonald, who says, "I was always intrigued by the fact that chimpanzees appear... continued

Savants Fairly Common

June 30, 2009
In autistics, anyway - There are more savants out there than we realized. In New Scientist, Celeste Biever describes her meeting with a 29-year-old blind musical savant with autism who can play any music you request, entirely from memory. She... continued

Why Do Some Teens Join Gangs?

June 29, 2009
Gangs are a major problem in urban areas, and now scientists have discovered that boys who carry a particular variation of a gene known as MAOA, which is sometimes called the "warrior gene," are more likely not only to join... continued

Tunguska Mystery Solved

June 29, 2009
AGAIN - The Tunguska mystery has been solved: it was a comet, not a UFO, that flattened leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest in 1908. But now NASA scientists have verified this by studying the exhaust plume from the... continued

Plan Ahead

June 29, 2009
If BACTERIA do it, you can too! Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it. A group of researchers in the US and Israel worked together to examine microorganisms living in environments that change in predictable ways. Their... continued

The Right Songs to Sing

June 26, 2009
Things got pretty nasty during the 2008 Presidential campaign, but researchers have discovered a way for everybody to "be nice" during future campaigns and political rallies. It has to do with the music: they shouldn't sing patriotic songs, they should... continued

What Makes a Sequel a Success?

June 26, 2009
The summer movie season is back, and what do we see the most of? Sequels! Some of us are getting a little tired of seeing so many themes repeated again and again and wonder why movie studios can't give us... continued

Sunspots May be Coming Back

June 26, 2009
UPDATE! - In this week's subscriber section, Whitley meditates on two new crop circles and discovers that they are predicting something about the SUN. He even has a specific TIME and DATE when solar changes will happen! Scientists who study... continued

New Asteroid Secrecy

June 25, 2009
But why? - Information from military satellites about incoming asteroids has always been given to scientists in the past, but now the military has suddenly classified the information. A recent US military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by... continued

Another Nasty Chinese Import

June 25, 2009
China is exporting a new kind of dangerous item: Spam. It's not enough that they're polluting our air, they're also polluting our computers. So far in 2009, nearly three-quarters of the websites advertised in computer spam have been traced to... continued