Karen Dobos wants a new name. She feels no connection to her current name (it came from her former husband) or to her previous name (she was Karen Paul when she graduated from Poquoson High School in 1994). So she’s ready to let a complete stranger pick her new surname. For a price.

By providing free consulting and some software, Google Inc. is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers.

Mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with brain ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease regain seemingly lost memories, according to research published on Sunday.

Shortly after his arrival in Washington, the Japanese leader renewed his expression of sympathy for Asian women driven into brothels by Japan’s military during World War II…

Over a third of US adult Internet users have used Wikipedia, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The user-generated encylopedia claims over 5.3 million total entries, 1.6 million of them in English. But still no listing for the Impact Lab or the DaVinci Institute.

Government officials in China risk getting sacked if they use their influence to benefit a lover or become involved in other forms of corrupt behavior, according to a regulation released by the central government on Sunday.

Sculptures are sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes they are naturally interactive…

Takara Tomy has released new robots, i.e. the good old Transformers, that can transform into a shoe or earphone! The earphone transformer even has a nifty name - Transformers Music Label Frenzy & Rumble!

Those clever folks over at Freaking News have created a contest revolving around anorexia. The images are revisions of classical art and are disturbing, striking and graphic, much like the disorder, so be aware.

A new matchmaking service for dogs – and virtually every other kind of domesticated pet from apes to zebras – promises to facilitate the arduous and heartbreaking process of hounding for the perfect mate.

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil.

Researchers from the IBM Almaden research lab and the University of Nevada have created a simulation of half a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer. ‘Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 synapses, or connections, with other nerve fibers.

The Ontario government has given approval for a California company to construct a massive solar "farm" near Sarnia that will blanket an area larger than all three Toronto islands with hundreds of thousands of sun-soaking panels.

Here is an amazing selection of photos from our good friends at Malgusto.

As you probably know, carbon nanotubes have very interesting mechanical, electrical and optical properties. The problem, currently, is that they’re too small (relatively speaking) to be of much use. Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a process to build extremely long aligned carbon nanotube arrays.

Martin Carujo creates each lamp individually from junk he finds, and gives them the "work of art" touch that puts them over and above any cool lamps you can buy at the store. (w/pics)

Coming soon: home test kits as simple and cheap as a pregnancy-test dipstick. Then will come dipsticks for the genes that control hormone levels, brain chemistry, nerve functions and metabolic rates–which, in turn, affect stress, pleasure, irritability, aggression, impulsive behavior, suicidal tendencies, alcoholism and sexual proclivities. And then, finally, the dipstick that reveals all. And Google […]

Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious — students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers to each other. Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device.

Thomas Frey: I had a chance to see the latest Philip K Dick movie "Next" and the idea-rich plot that will, in my opinion, have a way of surely energizing and inspiring the deep thinkers among us.