Kecia Lynn
Kecia Lynn has worked as a technical writer, editor, software developer, arts administrator, summer camp director, and television host. A graduate of Case Western Reserve University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is currently living in Iowa City and working on her first novel.
It's one of several new guidelines provided last week by the American Academy of Pediatrics that are designed to address the problems associated with excessive media use, including obesity and sleep deprivation.
First instituted over 60 years ago to help care for war orphans, the schools eventually began to attract a more moneyed clientele. Today, supporters say they promote independence, while critics say they leave some kids feeling abandoned.
Following on other restrictions designed to "clean up" airwaves, officials have announced that, among other rules, infomercials can only air for a maximum of three minutes per hour, and breast firming products can't be advertised at all.
From Aeroflot to McDonald's and many other businesses in between, a new wave of service training aims to change the country's famously infamous treatment of customers.
The plan would allow the world's space agencies to share information about potentially dangerous asteroids, create a special task group to detect smaller asteroids, and collaborate on ideas for diverting them from Earth.
By creating a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina girl, Terre des Hommes Netherlands drew attention to the growing problem of webcam child sex tourism. To date they've given the identities of over 1,000 predators to authorities.
Brigham Young researchers discovered that the type and frequency of texts sent between people in committed relationships reflected the quality of that relationship.
Anecdotal evidence has now been backed up by research: Using eyetracking technology, scientists found that both men and women looked at sexualized body parts when asked to evaluate appearance.
Until now, it was hard for geneticists to tell which parent or family line was the source of a particular genetic variant. The technique will enable improved risk assessment for diseases and refine organ matches for donors and recipients.
Experiments with people wearing blindfolds demonstrated that "what we normally perceive of as sight is really as much a function of our brains as our eyes," says one researcher.
Researchers have designed a type of laser technique that is able to distinguish the bad -- specifically, the proteins responsible for Alzheimer's and similar diseases -- from the good. Simply locating them could make removing them much easier.
Chinese researchers working with Microsoft have created a protoype that uses Kinect to enable hearing individuals to communicate with the deaf without needing to learn or understand sign language.
Using brain scans, Finnish researchers discovered that infants who listened to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in utero recognized the melody up to four months after birth. It's the first study to measure how long fetal memories last.
Oxford University researchers are currently testing the device, which captures images and puts them on transparent LED displays, on people who retain some ability to perceive light and motion.
Newly published in PLoS Computational Biology is a study describing new technology that safely delivers controlled anesthesia without requiring consistent human monitoring.
It's the first European country to allow parents to specify "X," giving them time to decide whether to have their child undergo sex-reassignment surgery. Some say the new law doesn't go far enough to address issues faced by intersex adults.
Test subjects were asked to rate paintings before and after receiving a mild amount of current in a portion of their brain. Paintings that depicted realistic scenes earned higher ratings after the zap.
Dutch design school graduate Alejo Bernal created a toy car that can be driven using a commercially-available EEG headset. The amount of concentration required to move it could provide exercise for those with attention deficit disorders.
A new report warns that a quarter of the world's food crops are being grown in areas that are already experiencing high levels of water stress. Increases in drought conditions and population size could make the situation worse.
New research suggests that the "automaton-like" nature of the typical immersive video game avatar can desensitize players to their own pain and that of others, regardless of the level of violence in the game.
The six people who are selected to participate in the Mars Society's project will spend an entire year at a station located 900 miles from the North Pole.
Starpath, a material currently being prototyped in a British park, absorbs UV rays during the day and releases them at night, creating a visible glow.
More than 82,000 people downloaded the Operation Predator app in the month after its September release. One official calls it a new way "to [turbo-charge] our traditional tip lines."
The FAA has lifted regulations restricting the use of certain electronic devices during flight. However, it's leaving it up to the airlines to prove how well their planes can tolerate the extra interference.
In research done on mice, a compound inside the venom of Chinese red-headed centipedes performed as well as, and in some cases even better than, morphine.
Several marketing campaigns launched over the last few months are designed to help young working men unplug, ideally with a beer. One of them is an app that offers a reward for leaving their phones alone.
The last above-ground map of the ancient water system was completed a century ago. Now, a group of scientists is using 21st-century technology to provide the first-ever map containing both underground and surface data.
To celebrate 10 years of images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, the German Aerospace Center has compiled a video that gives sweeping digital views of the planet's landscape.
Two new studies agree that Kepler-78b is about the same size and composition as Earth, but because it orbits its star at one-tenth the distance of our orbit, it's way too hot to support life.
In 2012, demand exceeded supply by 300 million cases, a number Morgan Stanley analysts say is "the deepest shortfall in over 40 years of records."