Video: A Robot That Conducts Its Own Research

I've always said that most of what I did as a biology research technician would someday be carried out by a robot or well-trained monkey. Most lab work involves tasks...

Milkshakes Are Medicine For Anorexic Teens In Family-based Outpatient Therapy

Getting your teenager to drink a chocolate milkshake isn't something most parents need to worry about. But this is just the approach used in one treatment for anorexia nervosa. Known...

Humans May Be Losers If Technological Nature Replaces The Real Thing, Psychologists Warn

Modern technology increasingly is encroaching into human connections with the natural world and psychologists believe this intrusion may emerge as one of the central psychological problems of our times.

Scientists show how a neurone gets its shape

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long a man's legs should be, he absurdly replied, 'Long enough to reach the ground.' Now,...

Well-timed Timeout Effective In Wiping Out Fear Memory Response

Banishing a fear-inducing memory might be a matter of the right timing, according to new research. Scientists have targeted a key time when memories are ripe for change to substantially...

Coming Face To Face With Autism

In the first study of its kind researchers will use video clips of spontaneously produced facial expressions in a real life social context to explore emotion recognition in autism.

Teens say they really know online friends

DENVER, April 2 (UPI) -- Most U.S. high school teens use the Internet to connect with people they already know rather than strangers who might be predators, a...

Physics historian Martin Klein dead at 84

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., April 3 (UPI) -- Martin J. Klein, a historian of modern physics and editor of Albert Einstein's papers, has died at the age of 84...

How You Feel the World Impacts How You See It

In the classic waterfall illusion, if you stare at the downward motion of a waterfall for some period of time, stationary objects -- like rocks -- appear to drift upward....

Sleep May Help Clear Brain For New Learning

A new theory about sleep's benefits for the brain gets a boost from fruit flies in this week's Science. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found...

Brain Cells Have 'Memory', Researcher Discovers

As we look at the world around us, images flicker into our brains like disparate pixels on a computer screen that change several times a second. Yet we don't perceive...

Gaining new insights into mentoring programs for adolescent girls

A study of a Big Brothers Big Sisters of America formal mentoring program, which matched adolescent girls with women mentors, revealed that strong emotional support and improvement in girls psychosocial...

Parents' sexuality influences adoption choices

A couple's sexual orientation determines whether or not they prefer to adopt a boy or a girl. Gay men are more likely to have a gender preference for their adopted...

Private member's bill targets cyberbullying

A Vancouver MP wants to amend the Criminal Code to target children and teenagers who use mobile phones and the internet to bully others.

Judge Orders Sanity Review For Ex-Astronaut

An Orlando judge has ordered former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak to undergo two psychiatric evaluations before her trial.

Effects of disease severity on autobiographical memory in semantic dementia revealed in new study

In a study conducted by the Laboratory of Neuropsychology of the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie and published by Elsevier in the April 2009 issue of Cortex, researchers studied for the...

Advertising: Once a Seldom-Heard Word, Pregnancy Is Now in the Spotlight

The word “pregnant,” once verboten on prime-time television, is now so common that an at-home fertility test will soon be advertised on TV.

Neuroscientists demonstrate link between brainwave acticity and visual perception

Can we always see what is in front of us? According to Dr. Tony Ro, a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at The City College of New York...

Beverage consumption a bigger factor in weight

When it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be more important than what you eat, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers...

Study finds that mothers' military deployment affects health of women and teens

FAIRFAX, Va.--Due to regional conflicts across the globe, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, women are being deployed overseas in greater numbers than...

Einstein scientists propose new theory of autism

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal...

Breast cancer: To screen or not to screen?

Women are often told that mammography saves lives. But rarely is the question asked, 'how often?' Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, set...

Simon Singh's guide for the perplexed

Health undervalued in reproductive rights debate

Women's health is increasingly undervalued in conflicts over reproductive rights, including clashes based on moral objections under so-called conscience clauses, a new study by a University of Illinois legal expert...

Offsetting perceptions: Firms use charitable giving to clean up their international reputation

British multinationals operating in countries that lack basic human rights give around 70% more money to charity than firms that do not have a presence in such politically controversial nations,...

Distress centres brace for depression-related suicide calls

Distress centres say they've been inundated with calls from people contemplating suicide in the midst of the economic downturn.

Do We Need Non-Fat, Low Cal, Sugar-Free Baby Food?

We’ve all heard the news: We’re getting fat. Americans are inactive, McDonald’s-eating smokers with diabetes, right? That’s certainly a generalization, but you know what they say. Where there’s smoke, there’s...

Depending on Context, Bird Couples Sing in Harmony or Discord

It takes two to duet, and one question for scientists is how these coordinated performances arise — in birds.