We Are Who We Hang Out With

 Posted on November 20, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  544 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The phrase "peer pressure" has profound meaning for the human species. We are, after all, social animals that spend most of our time interacting with others. In fact, this compelling need for interpersonal interaction is fundamental to our nature, something we share with other primates such as monkeys and apes. Sure, other animals form groups—zebras, for example, stand strip-to-stripe all day—but herding animals cluster together for protection against predators, not for friendship. [Read More]

What If Scientists Found Life on Closest Alien Planet Proxima b?

 Posted on November 20, 2022  |  7 minutes  |  1411 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The discovery of a potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of our closest star, Proxima Centauri, raises one of the greatest mysteries of science: Is there life beyond our world — and if so, could the Proxima system be a place to find it? "The big questions are, how much is it like our Earth, and does it have life? Those are the questions that everyone wants to know," [Read More]

Why We Make New Year's Resolutions

 Posted on November 20, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  818 words  |  Trudie Dory

Got plans to lose weight, eat healthier or save more money? If these or any other New Year's resolutions are on your list, you're in good company because you are taking part in a goal-driven tradition that has emerged in different forms throughout history. This year, 44 percent of respondents in a national survey said they planned to make resolutions for 2018, according to Marxist Poll, a poll run by the Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. [Read More]

2 Infants Were Buried Wearing Helmets Made from Kids' Skulls. And Archaeologists Are Puzzled.

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  469 words  |  Patria Henriques

Two infants were buried some 2,100 years ago wearing "helmets" made from the skulls of other children, archaeologists have discovered.  The remains of the two infants were found with nine other burials at a site called Salango, on the coast of central Ecuador. The archaeologists who excavated the burials between 2014 and 2016 recently published the details of their findings in the journal Latin American Antiquity. The team says this is the only known case in which children's skulls were used as helmets for infants being buried. [Read More]

Can Women Be Sex Addicts?

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  8 minutes  |  1548 words  |  Trudie Dory

From what the media tells us, sexual addiction is a strictly male problem – or least that is all we seem to hear. Men cheating on their wives, men seeing prostitutes, men going to strip clubs, massage parlours and of course, male politicians sexting online. Does this mean that there are no female sex addicts? If there are women out there who are acting out with sex, where are they and why don’t we hear more about them? [Read More]

Hackers Could Kill More People Than a Nuclear Weapon

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  987 words  |  Patria Henriques

People around the world may be worried about nuclear tensions rising, but I think they're missing the fact that a major cyberattack could be just as damaging — and hackers are already laying the groundwork. With the U.S. and Russia pulling out of a key nuclear weapons pact — and beginning to develop new nuclear weapons — plus Iran tensions and North Korea again test-launching missiles, the global threat to civilization is high. [Read More]

Identity of Fourth Soviet Spy Who Stole US Atomic Bomb Secrets Finally Revealed

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  937 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Three American spies were long known for having stolen U.S. atomic secrets between 1940 and 1948, sharing that information with the Soviets. Their actions fast-tracked the U.S.S.R's development of nuclear weapons and set the stage for the Cold War.  But in fact, there was a fourth spy — code-name "Godsend" — who handed over atomic secrets to Soviet intelligence. This person's identity was concealed from public view until now. His real name was Oscar Seborer, and he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, home of the Manhattan Project where the first nuclear weapons were designed. [Read More]

Is 4-Year-Old as Smart as Einstein? Not Quite, Scientists Say

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  530 words  |  Patria Henriques

One of the latest members of the high-IQ club Mensa is a mere 4 years old, with an IQ of 159 — but psychologists warn against pulling out the Albert Einstein comparisons just yet. As many media outlets have reported, Heidi Hankins of Winchester, England, scored only a point below Einstein and physicist Stephen Hawking on standardized intelligence tests. While there's no doubt that Hankins is bright (according to reports, she read at an 8-year-old level, and could count to 40, by age 2), it's not possible to compare IQ across age groups, according to Frank Lawlis, the supervisory psychologist for American Mensa. [Read More]

New Account of a Russian Cosmonaut's Death Rife with Errors

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  8 minutes  |  1684 words  |  Trudie Dory

In the new edition of a book called "Starman" (Bloomsbury 2011) Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony tell the story of the first space fatality the tragic death of Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov in 1967. The book doesn't hit stores until April 12, but NPR's Robert Krulwich got an advance copy, and covered its heart-wrenching account of the accident in a blog post two weeks ago. Unfortunately, in so doing, he may have publicized an inaccurate rewriting of history. [Read More]

Oceans Started Warming 135 Years Ago, Study Suggests

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  629 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

The world's oceans have been warming for more than 100 years, twice as long as previously believed, new research suggests. The findings could help scientists better understand the Earth's record of sea-level rise, which is partly due to the expansion of water that happens as it heats up, researchers added. "Temperature is one of the most fundamental descriptors of the physical state of the ocean," said the study's lead author,Dean Roemmich, an oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego. [Read More]