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

A recent study showed that certain brain areas expand in people who have greater numbers of friends on Facebook . This was welcome news for online social network addicts, particularly teenagers : "Mom, I'm not just on Facebook ; I'm doing my temporal lobe calisthenics." There was a problem, though

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But sometimes what makes you stronger can kill you, at least when it comes to blood-clotting

Climate change and expanding seas could cause the waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge to rise 3 to 4 feet by century's end, a new study finds. [More]

When Mars orbiters decades ago spotted valleys and other fluvial landforms on the surface of the Red Planet, a tantalizing idea came to the fore. Perhaps, planetary scientists ventured, ancient Mars was blanketed by a thick atmosphere that kept the planet much warmer and wetter than it is now, with flowing water, lakes and maybe even an ocean covering at least part of its surface. And if Mars had water some three billion to four billion years ago, they wondered, why not life?

High voltage cables are typically insulated with special water-resistant polymers that have high-dielectric strength. When the cables get whacked by an especially strong rain or snow storm the insulation may not block all of the moisture. The leaks can lead to a loss of electrical current or even damage to the cables.

In the classic book series, Little House on the Prairie , Pa's wanderlust repeatedly drives the Ingalls family westward past the edges of civilization.

(Updates toll, adds color) MUSCAT, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The death toll from a tropical [More]

Yahoo is trying to put the focus back on the e-mail, content, advertising and other Web-based services it offers following the company’s unceremonious dumping of former CEO Carol Bartz in September and a growing din of speculation that the company may soon be bought . At a press event Wednesday hosted at its Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters, Yahoo touted several recently announced services, most of them relying on a higher degree of personalization to keep visitors within the company’s network of about 100 Web sites. Whether Yahoo’s approach to intensify personalization will stand out amidst similar efforts by other large providers of Web content and services Google , Facebook and Apple, to name just a few remains to be seen

As NASA prepares to launch its new Curiosity Mars rover, we look back at some of the highlights--and the misfires--in more than 50 years of Mars missions [More]

Key concepts Chemistry [More]

This month NASA plans to launch its latest and most sophisticated mission ever to the Red Planet: the Mars Science Laboratory. After a dramatic landing in Gale Crater using a skycrane for the final descent, the nuclear-powered rover will drive around one of the richest deposits of clays and sulfates on the planet--the remains of a water-rich era when rivers carved out valley networks. The size of a small car, the rover (named Curiosity) will spend a Martian year exploring the base of the central peak in the crater, thought to be the oldest section

I originally published this on November 2, 2008 . You really need to reed the comments there, at the original post, as well as the “related” posts at the bottom of this post, as this story had some legs – a lot of discussion ensued. [More]

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon urged Washington and Beijing on Thursday to agree to curb the release of climate-warming gases to ensure the success of United Nations climate talks in South Africa later this month.

For many potential entr

By Allison Martell and Barbara Lewis (Reuters) - The United Nations body responsible for civil aviation weighed in against the European Union's emissions trading scheme on Wednesday, increasing pressure on the EU to back down in what threatens to become a serious trade dispute. [More]