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

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:

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - The health risks from toxins such as lead in old paint or asbestos in walls are too often overlooked when homes are upgraded, according to a study on Sunday calling on governments to set tougher pollution rules. [More]

[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.

Different branches of science have played famous roles in lots of movies. But one category is often overlooked: sources of energy, even though the plots and turning points of major movies have hinged on just that. How likely is the potential nuclear reactor meltdown in China Syndrome (Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon)

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness month, when public health groups take special pains to promote screening for cancer of the rectum and colon. A leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., this disease kills about 50,000 people each year; caught early, however, it has a good chance of being cured.

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It has happened to everyone. You can’t recall a name or you forget your credit card PIN number.

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

In the last few years NASA has built and launched two world-class climate satellites, both of which promised invaluable new data on the natural and human influences on Earth's changing climate. Neither of them, however, will ever deliver the data that climate scientists so eagerly expected from them.

A new study suggests some of Antarctica's ice sheet grows from the bottom up, adding a new wrinkle to efforts to predict how the continent's glaciers will respond to climate change. Radar images show that water under the base of the ice sheet refreezes into ice, creating a new bottom layer that accounts for up to half the total thickness of the ice sheet in some locations

If you’ve ever commuted through New York City during rush hour, you’ve probably experienced stress-inducing traffic, over-stuffed subway cars, or delays that don’t care if you’ve given yourself an extra half hour. In 1924 the New York metropolitan area’s population was already large enough to get the Transit Commission thinking of ways to accommodate future traffic needs

Who we know determines who we are. Three new books reveal how much heroes and even distant acquaintances influence us.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the March 1961 issue of Scientific American. In the days when civilized men believed that the world was flat they had no reason to think about gravity. There was up and down