Abnormalities in how the nucleus accumbens, highlighted here, processes dopamine have been found in individuals with psychopathic traits and may be linked to violent, criminal behavior.
The brains of psychopaths appear to be wired to keep seeking a reward at any cost, new research from Vanderbilt University finds. The research uncovers the role of the brain’s [...]

The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum’s world history standards on Enlightenment thinking, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will [...]

Some unusual art is on display in Citrus County, but it’s not the paintings, themselves, that are unusual. It’s who painted them.
Cheryl Ward said she considers herself an assistant to the artists, who paint in what she calls an “abstract expressionist” style.
She pours the paint and sets up the canvases, and her four horses do [...]

Okay, we made up the last bit, but these fish have been altered to grow far more muscular than normal trout:
The bodybuilder stature of the trout comes from turning off myostatin, a protein that normally slows muscle growth. Researchers had known of a natural myostatin mutation that allowed for 20 to 25 percent more muscle growth [...]

Word vs Icon. Which will win?

Should the US ditch the classic red “exit” sign and replace it with a green man? There are arguments both for and against. For the red:
The contrast between the letters and the background renders it highly legible, the illumination stresses the importance of the message, and the color is evocative [...]

The US Geological Survey has said that California has a 99.7% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 earthquake — or bigger — in the next three decades. University of California, Berkeley Professor and former Architecture Department Chair Mary Comerio says that, “California is probably the best-prepared place in the world,” but there are still preventative [...]

YouTube improvements are on the way!

If your browser supports HTML5 you can opt into the experimental HTML5 video playback on YouTube. Not only will you get smoother video playback—goodbye Flash!—but you’ll be able to speed up and slow down your videos.
The variable speed control is great for seeing things in slow motion. DIY and tutorial [...]

Preparations are already underway to secure the online credentials of the 2012 Olympics, with the announcement that that Metropolitan Police is in the midst of setting up two specialist web-based teams.
In a bid to smoke out e-crime and ticketing fraud on the web, the Met will put two teams in place: one to stop hackers [...]

Slowing down sodium intake is a new goal.
Over the past few years New York has gained a reputation for taking the health of its citizens seriously – or nannying them, depending on your point of view.
Now a member of the city’s legislative assembly has gone a step further by introducing a bill that would ban [...]

A new study finds a downturn in cancer death rates since 1990 results mostly from reductions in tobacco use, increased screening allowing early detection of several cancers, and modest to large improvements in treatment for specific cancers.
A new American Cancer Society study finds progress in reducing cancer death rates is evident whether measured against baseline [...]

Researchers are reporting a new method of growing arteries could lead to a “biological bypass” — or a non-invasive way to treat coronary artery disease.
A new method of growing arteries could lead to a “biological bypass” — or a non-invasive way to treat coronary artery disease, Yale School of Medicine researchers report with their colleagues [...]

The male of this species can be two to three times the mass of the female, but the females seem to be in control of the genetic destiny.
Two Dartmouth biologists have found that brown anole lizards make an interesting choice when deciding which males should father their offspring. The females of this species mate with [...]

Artist’s representation showing outflow from a supermassive black hole inside the middle of a galaxy.
Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early Universe.

The King Cobra continues to weave its charm with researchers identifying a protein in its venom with the potential for new drug discovery and to advance understanding of disease mechanisms.
The King Cobra continues to weave its charm with researchers identifying a protein in its venom with the potential for new drug discovery and to advance [...]

It’s confirmed: Space is bubbling with the potential for life. The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared—on board the Herschel Space Observatory—has sent a high resolution analysis of the Orion Nebula’s chemistry. It has scientists very excited…

Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right, and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey, a worldwide survey for the BBC has revealed.
The poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries for the BBC World Service showed that 78 percent of Internet users believed the [...]

Ever since I installed a barcode-scanning app on my phone, I see QR codes everywhere—so naturally I wanted one of my own. If you’re a barcode-scanning fool, the QR code to the left links to my personal web site. Fun!
A QR (”quick response”) code is a square barcode that makes getting URLs, location coordinates, any [...]

A new treatment known as ‘brain washing’ could dramatically reduce disability in newborn babies. The process involves removing toxic fluid potentially harmful to infants born early and suffering from large brain haemorrhages.
The technique, pioneered by doctors in Bristol, reduces the pressure put on the brain and for the first time has been shown to benefit [...]

Fluorescent labeling of proteins inside the carboxysome show that cyanobacteria create carboxysomes in numbers proportional to length and space them evenly along their longest axis.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon‹the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change‹nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s [...]

Scientists have pinpointed how a key hormone helps animals to recognise others by their smell.
Scientists have pinpointed how a key hormone helps animals to recognise others by their smell.

Microsoft has made a small but vitally important step forward in improving the overall tone of the online chat and gaming banter within its Xbox Live community
If you have ever played against strangers on Xbox Live then you have most likely been exposed to a whole array of homophobic insults, regularly blasted out by frustrated [...]

This new role should provide Emmy winner with endless stream of one-liners.

Hold on to your hat — an excrement-based television pilot is in the future for the man called the Shat. The straight poop, the Hollywood Reporter website says, is that William Shatner will star in a CBS comedy project based on a [...]

 
First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.

In 1993, Charlie Bennett at IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York State and a few pals showed how to transmit quantum information from one [...]

Australian underwear company AussieBum has been monkeying around and the result is a range of men’s underwear made with bananas.
AussieBum’s Lloyd Jones said on Friday that the new eco-friendly banana range of undies incorporated 27 percent banana fibre, 64 percent cotton and nine percent lycra.

Mountain of road salt, Toronto. Image: katalogue on flickr
Mountains of salt are spread on snowy roads in North America every winter, and environmentalists have been complaining about it for years. But studies are piling up that indicate that the cost may be too high.
Martin Mittelstaedt reports in the Globe and Mail about a new study [...]