You can teach your dog to lie down. But you cant teach him to lie, or to know when youre lying. Because a new report shows that Spot cant spot deception. The studys in the journal Behavioural Processes. Weve all known pooches who run and hide when th...
From Chernobyl to La Oroya, Peru, the world is littered with toxic wastelands, the residue of human industry. For the past two years, the Blacksmith Institute, an environmental health organization based in New York City, has been cataloguing the worl...
When youre done listening to this podcast, grab whatever product you use to clean. Maybe its something that smells really citrusy. Do a bit of cleaning. Then take a few deep breaths. Believe it or not the odds are now higher that youll make decisions...
If you want to lose weightreally lose it and keep it offlook around your house. How many TV sets are there? And is there an exercise bike or any other similar equipment? The answers could predict the success of your weight loss quest, according to a...
How many times has your mother told you to turn off the lights when you leave a room, or to close the fridge door while you decide what to eat. Well, climatologists are on her side. Because according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Acad...
Some people eat to avoid being bored. Others to avoid doing something theyd rather not, like preparing a podcast. Now a report says we might eat to avoid fungi. Because warm-bloodedness, a condition that requires a lot of calories, may have evolved t...
Did you know birds sing in dialect? They do. The song of a great tit from the countryside is a far cry from that of his city cousin. And some song dialects can change nearly as fast as human slangthe Indigo Bunting changes tune from year to year. To...
A nightlight may keep those monsters under the bed. But it may also open the door to the blues. Because a new study reveals that animals exposed to light all night long show signs of clinical depression. If you have access to electricity, you no doub...
Searching the Internet can be a totally exhausting experience, as you bounce from one site to another to another, sometimes until you cant remember what you were looking for in the first place. But according to scientists at U.C.L.A., all that virtua...
In 1865, Pierre Paul Broca pinpointed the part of the brain responsible for language by autopsying brains of the language-impairedthe region is now called Brocas area. But more info has been hard to get. Because most brain research is done on animals...
It's all about the meters. As any would-be installer of solar rooftop panels knows, having the right meter to count how much power your photovoltaics are producing is key. So perhaps it's no surprise that Team Germany snatched victory on the last day...
One of the goals of regenerative medicine is to make tissue to replace our own damaged body parts. Thats still a ways off. But starting with mouse embryonic stem cells, researchers have succeeded in creating heart muscle that actually beats. The stud...
In the celebrity vaccine wars, Im siding with actress Amanda Peet. And comedian Bill Maher, well, I like your show, but when it comes to vaccines you dont know a punchline from a clothesline. Maher recently tweeted to his Twitter followers if u get a...
Did you see The Simpsons episode where Homer makes a toast to alcohol?: To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of lifes problems. There are a few reasons why we might find this funny. First theres the inherently ridiculous contradictionthe re...
Youve no doubt heard of free radicals, those nasty chemicals that seem to contribute to heart disease, cancer and all sorts of human ailments. Maybe you even take antioxidant vitamins to help get rid of these unwanted toxins. Well, maybe you shouldnt...
