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This story is a joint project with ProPublica, PBS Frontline and McClatchy . The story will air on Frontline on Oct. 11

The New York Federal Reserve Bank is embarking on an ambitious social media monitoring project. Starting this December, the Fed will be monitoring Facebook, Twitter, and the broader web to gauge public response to economic policy. Civil libertarians and anti-big government activists are upset, but should they be

Even with a healthy lifestyle, genes are the deciding factor in whether someone gets a chronic illness, such as heart disease. Right?

LaunchRock helps startups lure thousands of users--before they even debut. How do you sell something that doesn't exist?

Tomorrow Apple is due to launch its iOS 5 update to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch's systems, bringing iMessage with it. Because of this, and other new tech, how your cell phone provider charges you for your service may be close to radically changing--powered not by internal company decisions, but by smartphone advances

By Sid Perkins of Nature magazine An explanation presented this week for a famed and enigmatic jumble of marine reptile fossils has blurred the lines between science and science fiction. [More]

By Mark Schrope of Nature magazine The X Prize Foundation today announced the winners of its year-long, US$1.4-million challenge to spur development of improved oil-collection systems for use during spills.

Fingerprints are so familiar that they are mostly taken for granted. Except, however, for people who don't have any at all.

It sounds either really crazy, or kind of obvious. But according to new research, pick-up soccer could help homeless men avert the risk of an early death. Homeless people are known to have poor health and life expectancy.

LONG BEACH, Calif.

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine Close and bright though it is, the Sun still defies a thorough understanding. [More]

By Kylie Stott PUERTO IGUAZU, Argentina - The musty jaguar pelts on display at a government office in Buenos Aires are a grim reminder of the big cat's precarious existence in Argentina's northern forests. [More]

Credit: IStockphoto I knew I wasn’t like the other kids. Oh sure, I collected baseball cards and model airplanes, but not with the passion that I saved for my real obsession--collecting each and every element of the periodic table .

The U.S. notoriously lags other countries when it comes to Internet speed. One recent report from Web analyst Akamai Technologies puts us in 14th place, far behind front-runner South Korea and also trailing Hong Kong, Japan and Romania, among other countries.

Susan starts her day by jogging to the edge of town, cutting back through a cornfield for an herbal tea at the downtown Starbucks and heading home for a shower. It sounds like a healthy morning routine, but Susan is in fact exposing herself to a rogue’s gallery of chemicals: pesticides and herbicides on the corn, plasticizers in her tea cup, and the wide array of ingredients used to perfume her soap and enhance the performance of her shampoo and moisturizer. Most of these exposures are so low as to be considered trivial, but they are not trivial at all--especially considering that Susan is six weeks pregnant.