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The Desceliers map of 1550. On a Renaissance map of the world, there is a small white elephant standing near the Arctic coast of Russia. How it got there is a mystery

Having a high IQ may have its drawbacks: a new study finds that highly intelligent children are more likely to try illegal drugs in their teenage and adult years. The work is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health . [James White and G.

By Monya Baker of Nature magazine The first company to test a human embryonic stem-cell product in patients has become the first big player to bail out of the field. [More]

More than 200 tops spin in vessels half-buried in the dirt outside Stephentown, N.Y., a town near the Massachusetts state line. Inside the vessel a vacuum permits each top to rotate as many as 16,000 times per minute, despite the fact that each weighs more than one metric ton, thanks to its steel and carbon-fiber composition

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.

Rationality is the crowning achievement of our species.

In the beginning, music industry watchers hailed subscription streaming services such as Spotify , MOG, Rdio, and Rhapsody as saviors of the industry, an alternative for listeners and labels to the tyranny of the 99-cent iTunes download. But artists weren't singing the same happy song.

At a recent math conference, Rouslan Krechetnikov watched his colleagues gingerly carry cups of coffee. Why, he wondered, did the coffee sometimes spill and sometimes not

In 2009 the San Francisco police arrested Lily Haskell when she allegedly attempted to come to the aid of a companion who had already been taken into custody during a peace demonstration. The authorities released her quickly, without pressing charges. But a little piece of Haskell remained behind in their database.

Mutations alter the information contained in genes. "Epigenetic" marks on genes do not affect the information but do influence gene activity, as the simplified diagrams below show

This past week, I was jolted out of my chair by news that a Pfizer-led group plans to buy access to patient data in hospitals . My initial reaction was anger, on a variety of levels: as a researcher, as one who is increasingly wary of the reach of huge corporations, and as an individual

Thanksgiving is just days away, a time to feast with family. And to avoid food-borne bacterial infections. [More]

courtesy of iStockphoto/MrPants Instead of cutting into a dead body to determine the cause of death, some coroners are already calling in a radiologist instead .

This year has been a painful one for fans of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, the perennial contender that has fallen to 0–10 on the season . Perhaps Hoosiers can take some small comfort in the thought of a world where star quarterback Peyton Manning is healthy rather than hobbled and the Colts are undefeated rather than winless. If the cosmological concept of the multiverse is correct , such a world could exist right now.

More than 10 million people have watched a YouTube video of an iPhone being pulverized in a blender. It's actually a commercial for Blendtec -- a company most viewers had probably never heard of. But with the viral clip, Blendtec let social networking spread its name and message rather than paying for a mass advertising campaign.