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Editor's note: The following is an excerpt adapted from the book, People Will Talk: The Surprising Science of Reputation , by John Whitfield (Wiley, 2011). Copyright

It’s a rare kind of research that incites a frenzied panic before it’s even published. But it’s flu season, and influenza science has a way of causing a stir this time of year. [More]

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Novels may be made up, but the emotions they evoke are real. These feelings grow out of our connection to the novel’s characters and the relationships between a protagonist and others in the context of the broader society. As we follow the ups and downs of a carefully crafted story, we build connections within the social and emotional regions of the brain.

Performance usually improves with practice, but not if training is a rotten time. A new study shows that people’s ability to identify noises declines when the sounds are paired with putrid smells--a phenomenon that may allow our brain to detect danger more quickly

The universe has no center and no edge, no special regions tucked in among the galaxies and light. No matter where you look, it’s the same--or so physicists thought. This cosmological principle--one of the foundations of the modern understanding of the universe--has come into question recently as astronomers find evidence, subtle but growing, of a special direction in space.

Golf fans always suspected it: before his infamous improprieties, the mere presence of Tiger Woods could panic other pros. Now, economist Jennifer Brown has figured out how strong that “Tiger factor” was

SAN FRANCISCO -- The United States was battered this year by at least 12 natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. [More]

On December 13, CERN will release the results of a new data analysis in the search for the Higgs boson. at the LHC. As I was reporting my article, which appeared today , on December 7 I spoke on the phone with Joe Lykken, a Fermilab staff theoretical physicist

Global spam levels have dropped to their lowest point in three years, and now make up just 70.5 percent of all emails, according to Symantec's new Intelligence Report .

Launch $1-billion-worth of spare parts to the International Space Station, and you can keep Earth's orbital outpost going for another decade.

SAN FRANCISCO The public at times questions scientific results produced by government agencies, thinking that the findings may be meant to support particular political policies or positions or to deflect criticism of those policies. Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a formal scientific integrity policy yesterday that is intended to combat that cynicism

The English language is not especially kind to rats. We say we "smell a rat" when something doesn't feel right, refer to stressful competition as the "rat race," and scorn traitors who "rat on" friends

The physics buzz reached a frenzy in the past few days over the announcement that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is planning to release what is widely expected to be tantalizing--although not conclusive--evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson, the elementary particle hypothesized to be the origin of the mass of all matter. [More]

Manhattan's midtown streets are arranged in a user-friendly grid. In Paris 20 administrative districts, or arrondissements, form a clockwise spiral around the Seine.