two italian greyhounds mating
Same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species, from worms to frogs to birds, concludes a new review of existing research.

 
Researchers found that intelligence varies among individual monkeys.
Scientists at Harvard University have shown, for the first time, that intelligence varies among individual monkeys within a species – in this case, the cotton-top tamarin.

 
Doctors have been investigating the use of nanoparticles for medicine for years.
Nanoparticles specially engineered by University of Central Florida Assistant Professor J. Manuel Perez and his colleagues could someday target and destroy tumors, sparing patients from toxic, whole-body chemotherapies.

Scientists first discovered psittacosaurs in the Gobi Desert in 1922
Plants or meat: That’s about all that fossils ever tell paleontologists about a dinosaur’s diet. But the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These characteristics present the first solid [...]

 
Participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) — a test that measures hypothesis-testing
Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to a new Université de Montréal and Harvard University study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked [...]

 
Earth…

By using a super-computer to virtually squeeze and heat iron-bearing minerals under conditions that would have existed when the Earth crystallized from an ocean of magma to its solid form 4.5 billion years ago, two UC Davis geochemists have produced the first picture of how different isotopes of iron were initially distributed in the solid [...]

Maria Sharpova’s blinking dress
Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova presented a prototype dress to reporters that is designed to light up when the wearer’s mobile telephone rings. (Pics)

Cultured skin cells (green) from a healthy person (top) and a person with Alzheimer’s disease (bottom).
A novel test that detects enzymes that are dysfunctional in patients with Alzheimer’s disease–and that are found both in the brain and in skin cells–is about to undergo large clinical trials. Researchers at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI), in [...]

Humans related to orangutans, not chimps 
New evidence underscores the theory of human origin that suggests humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science. Reporting in the June 18 edition of the Journal of Biogeography, the researchers reject as “problematic” the [...]

Smell your way to losing weight
Like almost every dieter in America, Wendy Bassett has used all sorts of weight-loss products. Nothing worked, she said, until she tried Sensa: granules she scatters on almost everything she eats, and which are supposed to make dieters less hungry by enhancing the smell and taste of food.

NASA has plans to fire a rocket into the moon to create a six-mile high explosion
In an unprecedented scientific endeavor – and what may be one of the coolest space missions ever – NASA is preparing to fly a rocket booster into the moon, triggering a six-mile-high explosion that scientists hope will confirm the presence [...]

 
Born 3-and-a-half months prematurely, Derek Paravicini was so small that his doctor presumed that he was dead. Just as his mother had given up hope, she heard the faintest whimper. To keep him alive, he was put on oxygen but improper equipment left him blind and autistic. At the tender age of 2 years old, [...]

YourSpace is shrinking.
In May 2009, Facebook became the most popular US social networking site.
But it was close.
According to comScore, Facebook totaled 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace hits shrank 5% over the same timeframe, fading to 70,255,000 unique visitors.

Golden Showers of Vending Goodness

Shoppers in Germany will soon be able to buy gold as easily as bars of chocolate after a firm announced plans to install vending machines selling the precious metal across the country.
TG-Gold-Super-Markt aims to introduce the machines at 500 locations including train stations and airports in Germany.
The company, based near Stuttgart, [...]