RNA Synthesized From Non-RNA In Possible Recreation Of Life's First Spark

Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn't explain how these ingredients might have formed.

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Jon Stewart, Jim Cramer Make America Feel Pleasantly Uncomfortable

Here's a major chunk of the big Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer Daily Show interview that aired earlier tonight. "Devastating" is just not the right word. It's hard to remember the last time a teevee interview left us in such a state of stunned silence.

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Ecstasy's Long-Term Effects Revealed

Enough time has finally elapsed to start asking if ecstasy damages health in the long term. According to the biggest review ever undertaken, it causes slight memory difficulties and mild depression, but these rarely translate into problems in the real world.

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Conservatism Dead?

After George W.

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Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press

In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized-- connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding.

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How Hunting is Driving Evolution-in-Reverse

Other species are shrinking, too. Australia's red kangaroo has become noticeably smaller as poachers target the largest animals for leather.

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Are Black Women Getting Smaller?

An economist in Germany has noticed a curious trend among Americans: For the past 50 years, black women have been shrinking with each new generation.

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Researchers Use PlayStation Cluster to Forge a Skeleton Key for Web Commerce

A powerful digital certificate that can be used to forge the identity of any website on the internet is in the hands of in international band of security researchers, thanks to a sophisticated attack on the ailing MD5 hash algorithm, a slip-up by Verisign, and about 200 PlayStati …

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How To Actually Talk To Atheists (If You're Christian)

Now, I know that the message of Christ's death and resurrection sin so that humans can spend eternity in Heaven isn't being sold by (most) Christians as steak and chocolate and unicorns. That's not my point.

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Newly Minted "Rosetta Disk" Has 2,000 Year Lifespan

Recently released by the Long Now Foundation, the Rosetta Disk, in all its miniature glory, is a remarkable artifact of human knowledge.

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Did Our Cosmos Exist Before The Big Bang? Sophisticated New Models Suggest "Maybe"

"Loop Quantum Gravity" has been tantalizing physicists since 2003 with the idea that our universe could conceivably have emerged from the collapse of a previous universe. Now the theory is poised to make predictions we can actually test.

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The Orienting Stone: The Study Of "Otoliths" (or "Ear Stones") In Fish

Fish otoliths are among the strangest and most wonderful bits of vertebrate anatomy. They are strikingly sculptural, and their clean surfaces tend to display an alluring opalescent sheen.

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Torture Started With Bush, Alleges New Report

After a two-year investigation, the Senate names names -- Bush, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington, Rice.

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Strategic Video Game Improves Critical Cognitive Skills In Older Adults

A desire to rule the world may be a good thing if you're over 60 and worried about losing your mental faculties.

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Americans' Household Debt Shrinks For The First Time... Ever

It's a sign of the times: Americans are pulling back on the debt they use to spend and fuel the economy, while their net worth is declining.

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Amish gene 'limits heart disease'

A gene mutation which protects the heart against a high-fat diet has been found in the Amish population.

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Bernard Madoff arrested over alleged $50 billion fraud

Bernard Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Street for decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion "Ponzi scheme" in what may rank among the biggest fraud cases ever. Madoff, former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market and founder of Bernard L.

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Colin Powell Unleashed: Can We Continue to Listen to Limbaugh?

"Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" Powell asked. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?"

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The Great Chess Doping Scandal

Professional chess player Vassily Ivanchuk, born in Berezhany, Ukraine in 1969, has been a grandmaster for the past 20 years and is currently ranked third in the world. The man with black hair and bedroom eyes is known as "Big Chucky" by his fellow chess players.

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Hovering "Multiple Kill Vehicle" Robot Passes Flight Test, Prepares To Frighten The World

Are you ready for a vision of your inevitable end at the hands of a hovering murderbot? Feast your eyes, then, on this video of the Missile Defense Agency's MKV-L -- or as we like to call it, the Multiple Kill Vehicle.

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Joseph E. Stiglitz on capitalist fools: About Us: vanityfair.com

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"Bill Kristol: Worthless Political Hack" Opines 'Below the Beltway'

In today's New York Times, Bill Kristol says that Republicans need to abandon limited government ideology...

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An Electronic Revolution May Lie In The Development Of "Memristors"

Earlier this year, I and my colleagues at Hewlett-Packard Labs, in Palo Alto, Calif., surprised the electronics community with a fascinating candidate for such a device: the memristor.

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Domestic Terrorism Targets Medical Research

Terrorists have struck again. In the predawn hours one morning last month, they used an incendiary device to destroy two cars. You may not have heard about this, even though it followed a series of firebombings of homes and other vehicles.

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Armed Robbers Dressed in Drag Steal £70million of Diamonds

Late yesterday afternoon, the Parisian branch of exclusive jewelers Harry Winston was the target of one of the world's largest ever jewel heists.

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