A federal aerospace panel has warned that NASA could face serious safety issues if it carries out plans to rely on private companies to send its astronauts into space in the future.
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Shankar Vedantam’s new book “The Hidden Brain” is based on his belief that the human brain can reveal biases such as racism that we would avoid consciously acknowledging.
A person’s aptitude for recognising faces is heritable, and is inherited separately from general intelligence or IQ, according to twin studies at MIT and in Beijing.
A new report going back 10,000 years found most of today’s European men are genetically linked to farmers which suggests farmers were more attractive than hunter gatherers.
Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates is finally living up to his computer-aficionado status and has joined Twitter – attracting 2008 followers per minute on his first day.
There’s no proof that electronic cigarettes are safer than their paper and tobacco counterparts according to Greek scientists worried by their growing popularity.
The earth shook in the Cayman Islands yesterday rattling resident’s nerves more than the 5.8 Richter scale quake, prompting fears of a repeat of the devastation in Haiti.
World aid agencies are appealing to Israel to unlock the Gaza strip after a Palestinian school girl Fida Hejji died of cancer while awaiting permission to go to an Israeli hospital.
A manhunt involving hundreds of police and helicopters has been launched in Virginia after a rogue gunman went on the rampage and killed eight people.
Republican Scott Brown won the last night’s Senate race in Massachusetts and has vowed to use his deciding vote to move against healthcare reforms in a bitter blow for Obama.
“The worst debacle in American political history.” That’s what a senior Democratic Party official called the Democrat Martha Coakley’s performance in the Massachusetts special election to fill deceased Sen. Ted […]
While there have long been global qualms about China’s record on human rights, very little of that outcry has come from the world’s richest and most powerful. Especially as China […]
Stanford economics professor John Taylor has some ideas about the financial crisis. For one, he doesn’t believe that the Fed could have done much more than they did during the […]
There is a rough rule of thumb that British political leaders are obliged to contend with, and with mixed feelings. Just as their domestic polls begin to drop, foreigners begin […]
Embryonic stem cells can transform themselves into any kind of cell, including neurons. But neurons made out of stem cells won’t be much use if, after implantation, they don’t connect […]
Yesterday I linked to the Becker-Posner blog which is kept by two University of Chicago professors: Gary Becker and Richard Posner. Becker is an economist and Nobel Laureate and Posner […]
I have nothing against the development of sex robots. They’re a logical next step in the history of technology’s application to sexual desire. No doubt they will be a great […]
As desperate Haitians flee the horrors of earthquake-stricken Port-au-Prince the hundreds of thousands of dead are being denied burials and the funeral rites that accompany them.
Doubts have been raised about the apparent suicides of three Guantanimo Bay detainees who had reportedly been taken to a secret location just hours before their deaths.
Kraft has agreed to acquire 150-year-old British chocolate manufacturer Cadbury’s in a share transaction worth £11.5m sparking fears that the company’s ethos will be compromised.
A luxury cruise liner which usually delivers tourists to a beach near Port-au-Prince has said it will donate spare sun loungers and beach furniture to make a temporary hospital for victims.
Withholding HIV treatments led to the death of 330,000 people in South Africa as the result of AIDs denialist policies according to a new report which proves the benefits of treatment.
China has banned showing James Cameron’s Golden Globe winning fantasy and CGI-fest Avatar and has instead opted for a patriotic biopic on the life of Confucius.
Three Somali pirates have been killed and others wounded in an overnight gun battle concerning the sharing of a ransom paid for the release of a Greek-flagged supertanker.
Stunning images of sea ice formations have been published by Wired, capturing the Wilkins ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula and other areas of eerie natural beauty.
To commemorate the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moonwalk NASA has released partially restored video of a series of 15 memorable moments from the expedition.
The man tried to murder Pope John Paul II and later claimed to be Jesus has emerged from prison demanding $7m for tell-all film and book deals which he wants Dan Brown to write.
When the women artists of today look back in history for examples to follow, they usually limit themselves to the artists of the twentieth century. Sure, an Artemisia Gentileschi here […]
Planet Green ran an interesting countdown today: “6 Lessons the Green Movement Can Learn from MLK (in his own words).” Each bullet point is an MLK quote – most of […]
It may not be brain surgery to follow every step on a checklist but, as today’s guest, Atul Gawande explains, enforcing something so simple as a mandatory protocol for every […]