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Scientists have discovered the largest black holes yet, and they're far bigger than researchers expected based on the galaxies in which they were found. [More]

Scientists have long hunted for a pattern of brain activity that signals consciousness, but a reliable marker has proved elusive. For many years theorists have argued that the answer lies in the prefrontal cortex, a region of high-level processing located behind the forehead; neural signals that reach this area were thought to emerge from unconscious obscurity into our awareness. Recent research, however, supports the idea that consciousness is a conversation rather than a revelation, with no single brain structure leading the dialogue.

Matt is a history teacher.

See how a rat’s mothering style can be passed down to her pups--and to their pups and so on--by altering the mix of chemical groups, or epigenetic marks, on genes in the brain. This animation is based on research led by Michael Meaney of McGill University

On April 27, 1817, Jane Austen sat down and wrote her will, leaving almost all of her assets--valued at less than 800 pounds sterling--to her sister Cassandra. In May, the sisters moved to Winchester, England, so the bedridden Jane would be near her doctor. On July 18, only a few days after dictating 24 lines of comic verse to Cassandra, Jane died.

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In 1984 the Hatch-Waxman Act made it cheaper and easier to put generic versions of a drug on the market. As a result of the expedited approval process, generics now make up more than 60 percent of prescription drugs sold in the U.S. and have saved the health care system $734 billion between 1999 and 2008 alone

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Bats see with their ears. Which are highly attuned to pick up minute variations in the reflection of the sound pulses they use to echolocate. Here are some pulses, slowed down.

Erez Lieberman Aiden was an undergraduate at Princeton University in 2000 when scientists announced with great fanfare that they had sequenced the first human genome , yielding a trove of information about what happens inside every human cell. But Aiden wondered what it would be like to see what was happening inside a human cell

With the stream of accusations of child sexual abuse not losing any gusto lately, from the ever-growing charges against former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky to allegations of such behaviors by assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, it'd be easy to assume a real upsurge in such abuse.

Rotary evaporator. Credit: Geni/Wikimedia Commons [More]

The Arctic has transformed over the last five years into a region that's warmer and greener, with larger patches of open water as sea ice recedes. [More]

(Reuters) - The Arctic zone has moved into a warmer, greener "new normal" phase, which means less habitat for polar bears and more access for development, an international scientific team reported on Thursday. [More]

What lies beneath such turbulent skies? (NASA/JPL) Gas giant planets are among the most beautiful and awe-inspiring worlds