Observations
Why the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Is So Special to Me
My dad worked for NASA, recruited John Glenn and knew Neil Armstrong
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Observations
Celebrating the Engineers behind the First Moon Landing
My father was one of those who worked feverishly behind the scenes 50 years ago to get astronauts safely to the moon and back
Life, Unbounded
The World without the Moon
What if our natural satellite didn’t exist?
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Is Religion Adaptive? It’s Complicated
A group of Darwinian theorists discuss religion in Edinburgh, Scotland
Abby Normal? Nope: Psychiatrist knits anatomically correct brain
The brain is among the body's more intimidating pieces of anatomy, but a child psychiatrist has made it warm and fuzzy — by knitting a copy.
Karen Norberg, a research instructor in psychiatry at Washington University in St...
New study: Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are genetically linked
A new study suggests that if schizophrenia runs in a family, there's a good chance that bipolar disorder does as well (and vice versa). The findings, published today in the journal The Lancet , suggest that the two disorders are caused by some of the same genes...
FDA okays new drug to treat fibromyalgia
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new med to treat fibromyalgia, a mysterious disease characterized by chronic widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances and depression...
Coffee-induced hallucinations? Caffeinated coeds hear voices, study says
Java is known to give some people the jitters if they drink too much of it. But can it also trigger hallucinations?
It may if you consume enough of it, say British psychologists, who report in the journal Personality and Individual Differences this week that college students they studied said they sometimes heard faux voices after chugging at least seven cups of coffee daily...
Feds fail to use effective drug treatment plans in prison
Despite 20 years of scientific evidence showing that drug treatment programs work, the feds fail to offer enough of them to prisoners, according to a new study.
Can open-heart surgery make you dimmer?
Every year, about half a million Americans undergo open-heart surgery. Roughly 60 percent of them experience some degree of mental decline after the surgery, a phenomenon that surgeons call "pumphead." A new study in this month's Annals of Thoracic Surgery sheds light on possible causes of the mysterious condition, which in some patients is temporary but in others may last a lifetime...
Watch out Hawaii: Veggies may harbor rare parasite
Three people in Hawaii have come down with what appears to be a rare parasitic disease called rat lungworm disease in recent weeks. Two of the victims (friends who had a meal together) told the Honolulu Star Bulletin that they experienced "agonizing pain" after eating raw vegetables – and physicians fear they may have accidentally swallowed slug larvae hidden inside folds of raw peppers...
"Love hormone" may also help us recognize faces
Oxytocin, a hormone associated with trust and social bonding, also helps people recognize familiar human faces, according to a new study. Researchers say the findings, published today in The Journal of Neuroscience , could shed light on the causes of mysterious neurological and psychological disorders...
Never Ask a Gay Man for Directions
Because studies show homosexual males navigate like women
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Exploring and celebrating diversity in science.
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