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The color of a candidate’s skin failed to sway voters to depress the lever for either Obama or McCain in the 2008 election, immediate analyses of that contest seemed to suggest. Some pundits hailed it as the first postracial election. [More]

The gardening cycle has been thrown off the rails in Debbie Ricigliano's Howard County, Md., vegetable garden in past years. Shrubs are blooming earlier, cherry buds are opening in the fall and flower bulbs are emerging when they shouldn't.

Gingrich in New Hampshire.

Key concepts [More]

Among the first things you notice when you step into the corner office of Harvard University professor Joanna Aizenberg are the playthings. Behind her desk sit a sand dollar, an azure butterfly mounted in a box, a plastic stand with long fibers that erupt in color when a switch is pulled, and haphazard rows of toys. Especially numerous are the Rubik’s cubes--the classic three-by-three, of course, but also ones with four, five, six and even seven mini cubes along each edge.

Joanna Aizenberg's muse is the whole of the natural world. The Harvard University materials scientist takes her inspiration from creatures that suggest engineering of substances in unexpected ways.

Encroaching seas have eroded southeastern Louisiana.

I bought three copies of Sam Kean s The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements . I left the first one in the seat-back pocket of Delta flight 188 from Beijing to Detroit.

Jo

* Snowfalls expected to ease on Thursday evening * PM says priority is to rescue bus passengers [More]

Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study. [More]

By Nina Chestney LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Flooding will be Britain's biggest climate risk this century, with damage set to cost as much as 12 billion pounds ($18 billion) a year by the 2080s if nothing is done to adapt to extreme weather, a report said on Thursday. British summers are forecast to get hotter, while winters will get milder and wetter. New government-funded research has identified the top 100 effects of climate change and their expected impact on Britain and magnitude over this century.

When it comes to the battle of the bulge, putting on more muscle will burn extra calories even when you're resting. But recent research suggests that there might be a particular type of fat that also uses up more energy than the typical off-white stuff that tends to congregate around American midsections: brown fat

It’s known that taller people tend to have more jobs with more authority--and higher salaries.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto/energyy Heart disease is the leading killer in the U.S., and more than 27 million Americans currently have a cardiac condition . But what is your risk of developing heart disease at some point in your entire life? It might be a lot higher than you think, according to a new paper published online Wednesday in The New England of Medicine