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

You walk into the kitchen to grab a--wait, why did you come in here again? [More]

Kristian Carlson (right) discusses the first rib of Australopithecus sediba with colleague Brian Kuhn. Image: Kate Wong JOHANNESBURG At a tea party earlier today for a research team at the University of the Witwatersrand that has grown accustomed to making stunning discoveries of human fossils, a curious excitement erupted when Kristian Carlson unveiled a seemingly modest find: a rib bone from Australopithecus sediba . In fact, it wasn’t even an actual fossil just a resin replica

(Reuters) - The U.S. government proposed protecting old-growth forests in Idaho and Washington state on Tuesday to save the nation's dwindling population of mountain caribou, popularly known as wild reindeer. [More]

iStockphoto/kali9 More and more physicians are investing in their own imaging equipment. But when a doctor stands to make money on each MRI he or she orders, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that they might be inclined to order too many scans. [More]

The Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson and the Center for Snake Conservation in Louisville, Colo., have put up a $500 reward for evidence that the South Florida rainbow snake ( Farancia erytrogramma seminola ) is not extinct, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared in October [pdf].

The notion that robots must be rigid metallic automatons made mobile by wheels, tracks or even legs has constrained the imagination of their designers. The weight of all those rods, gears and motors quickly adds up, and complex mechanical and electrical control systems are needed for robots to handle delicate objects or navigate across different types of terrain. [More]

People still need electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, which is why renewable energy developers are increasingly investing in energy storage systems. They need to sop up excess juice and release it when needed.

A reusable, electrically propelled spacecraft would open up vast realms of deep space to human exploration. The interactive below provides a walkthrough of the proposal laid out by Damon Landau and Nathan J. Strange

Energy efficiency is not just for appliances and vehicles on Earth--spacecraft that conserve fuel can provide a boost to humanity, too. In a recent article for

In 1977, 22-year-old Steve Jobs introduced the world to one of the first self-contained personal computers, the Apple II.

When I was in fifth grade, my brother Alex started correcting my homework. This would not have been weird, except that he was in kindergarten--and autistic

For the Xhosa in South Africa, a boy's coming of age is often marked by an elaborate and lengthy set of rituals. One of the ordeals is circumcision , which is traditionally performed by a healer and occasionally leads to an ineffective cut, infection or even death. The young men who emerge from the ceremony healthy, however, achieve not only new social status but are also much less likely to become infected with HIV

After more than 15 years of international climate negotiations, it has become ever more clear that all the carbon dioxide emitted to shuttle diplomats from city to city to hash out a regime to curb climate change has been largely wasted. The success of harried diplomacy in Kyoto in 1997 has given way to Japan buying its way out of emissions reductions in 2011 and refusing to sign up for more.

Two researchers at Columbia University in New York say they've found a flaw in ordinary office printers that lets hackers hijack the devices to spy on users, spread malware and even force them to overheat to the point of catching fire. [More]

By Heidi Ledford of Nature of magazine With sales of more than $100 billion since it was introduced in 1997, the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor (atorvastatin) is an unparalleled pharmaceutical superstar.