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People who have more traits of autism are less likely to believe in God that those that do not have such traits, according to new research that suggests that belief is boosted by the ability to see into the minds of others. This ability, often called theory of mind, or mentalizing, is diminished in people with…
A bold plan to bring every person on Earth sustainable energy within 18 years will face its first test of international acceptance at the Rio+20 Earth Summit – the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June. The Sustainable Energy For All initiative is a flagship programme launched by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon. Its goals…
A study out at the end of May attempts to probe why attitudes on climate risks by some segments of the public don’t track the science all that well. Along the way, it basically debunks one simplistic assumption: that climate skeptics, for want of a better term, just don’t understand the data — or perhaps…
Seven scientists won prizes for discoveries that involve the furthest reaches of the solar system, vanishingly tiny materials and the complexities of the brain. One finding helped end Pluto’s status as a planet. The researchers will share three $1 million Kavli prizes, awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in partnership with the…
A new way to find a star’s age can give clues to how our Milky Way galaxy built itself up over billions of years from smaller galaxies, a U.S. astronomer says. Using a new technique, Jason Kalirai of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore has examined the burned-out relics of sun-like stars, called white…
Modern birds retain the physical characteristics of baby dinosaurs, according to a new Nature study that found birds are even more closely related to dinos than previously thought. Depending on the non-avian dinosaur and bird compared, that might be hard to believe. A toothy, angry reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, on first glance looks…
Michael Ruse blogs over at The Chronicle’s Brainstorm: Here we go again. The latest news on the fighting-Creationism front is that states like Georgia have found ways to channel public funds to private schools. Some of the money goes–Surprise! Surprise!—to fund athletic scholarships. (And in places like Georgia, “athletics” means football.) Almost all of the money…
Researchers believe the nation’s food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture. The study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paints the highest resolution picture yet of how groundwater depletion varies across space and time in California’s Central Valley and the High Plains of the…
Cognitive psychologist Elaine Fox from the University of Essex, UK, explores the ways in which we can retrain our brains to view the world with a positive outlook in her book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. New Scientist asked her why some people see the glass as half empty, and what techniques science offers us to change that perspective.
The Sequoia National Park forest contains the biggest and among the oldest living things on earth – the giant Sequoia redwoods. But it also boasts the worst air pollution of any national park in the country. Already this year, the level of ozone in Sequoia park has exceeded federal health standards, even though it’s early in the summer ozone season.