Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Do genes make people evil? --Robert Schreib, Jr., Toms River, N.J.

Wine can help keep conversation flowing at a dinner party. And now it looks like that wine may aid in materials science as well. Japanese researchers discovered that hot alcoholic beverages induce superconductivity in iron-based compounds.

By Matt Kaplan A genetic analysis of modern hunter-gatherer populations in Africa suggests that humans evolved in the south of the continent, rather than the east, as has been thought. [More]

By Jo Marchant Whoever saves Egypt's endangered antiquities, it will not be Zahi Hawass. [More]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Monday that it will create a single task force to oversee all aspects of its criminal investigation into last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A department spokesman said the task force will be led by a criminal division senior counsel, John Buretta, and will be supervised by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who is in charge of the department's criminal division.

By Zeeya Merali Researchers have developed a multifunctional catheter fitted with malleable electronics that has many of the necessary tools for cardiac surgery. [More]

"One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one's greatest efforts." --Albert Einstein While Einstein was not a neuroscientist, he sure knew what he was talking about in regards to the human capacity to achieve. He knew intuitively what we can now show with data--what it takes to function at your cognitive best.

The crash Friday of NASA's Glory satellite couldn't have come at a worse time. The incident is a blow for climate science and the space agency's efforts to rebuild an Earth observation program weakened by years of lean budgets

Looking in the mirror and recognizing oneself was long thought to be an ability reserved for humans. Recently, however, researchers have found that other apes, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, seem to show signs of self-awareness, including recognizing and inspecting themselves in a mirror. Now one group of investigators claims that rhesus macaques have joined this elite group of self-aware animals.

By Svetlana Kovalyova and Deepa Babington MILAN/ROME (Reuters) - Climate change bringing floods and drought, growing biofuel demand and national policies to protect domestic markets could drive up global food prices and threaten long-term food security, the United Nations said. [More]

The National Sleep Foundation released the results of its annual sleep poll today, where they surveyed more than 1,500 people between ages of 13 and 64. Here are some of the findings:

[Please note this podcast episode is longer than 60 seconds.]

Past studies have shown that something called "negative affect" (which is an overall smorgasbord of anger, sadness, fear, irritation, etc.) causes us to inflate the number of physical symptoms we feel. But recent research from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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By Philip Ball The first microscopes were a lot better than they are usually given credit for. [More]