Discovered: Video games can help dyslexic kids read; pregnancy increases foot size; around 100 million sharks are killed annually; mammalian sperm swims upstream.
Today in books and publishing: 1Q84 author wants everyone to simmer down; a reading list for inmates; John Travolta didn't libel author; Apple owes Chinese encyclopedia.
Discovered: Republican women have more "feminine" features; some evidence for Mars' watery past; element 113 is synthesized; how the brightest stellar event ever recorded happened.
Everybody's got an opinion about J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults. With the embargo on reviews now lifted, the book is drawing wildly polarized responses.
Today in books and publishing: Woman cuffed for late library returns; get to know Indian-American fiction; Samuel L. Jackson curses for Obama; did Chabon get Oakland right?
The states allows school officials to spank teenagers of the opposite gender, apparently. On top of that insane fact, one commenter noted that the spanking policy has a huge flaw.
Discovered: Scientists control feeble worm brains with lasers; the earth shook for six days after April's Indian Ocean quake; a view into deep space; vampire squids are gross.
Today in books and publishing: Morrissey springs into action at The Strand; publishers hound authors who took the money and ran; libraries and publishers can't agree on e-books.
Discovered: Pediatricians warn of trampoline's dangers; a treatment for progeria; virus touted as cure for pimples; research universities in financial straits.
Today, Richard Lawson sent Lindsay Lohan off to sea as a Newfoundland fisherwoman. One of our commenters imagined giving Lindsay a fictional nautical chic makeover.
Today in books and publishing: New Jersey book columnist discovers the Internet; lesbian pulp novelist Tereska Torrès dies; Schwarzenegger, Olympia Snowe, and a Scientology insider tell all.
In celebration of National Punctuation Day, one of our commenters noted James Joyce's playful use of the colon in a line from Ulysses.
Discovered: Korean eunuchs outlived endowed peers; uncertainty lingers about Omega-3 pills; sexism in science; sustained thought kills cooperation.
The kiddie tablet wars aren't child's play. In a lawsuit filed today, the makers of the Nabi accuse Toys 'R' Us of sabotaging their product only to copy it for their own Tabeo device.
Today in books and publishing: Rowling's old neighbors insist they aren't snobs; Naomi Wolf's Vagina turns off feminists; Teju Cole on Insta-photography; happy International Book Week!
Discovered: the Orion Nebula doesn't have that many stars; naked mole-rats are ugly because of evolution; recapping the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony; doctors wary of drug company findings.
Rebecca Greenfield noted the widespread scorn for apps that automatically share articles users read on social media sites. One of our commenters explained this frustration pithily.
Did you hear that Monica Lewinsky is getting an eight-figure book deal for her juicy tell-all? We'd take that with a grain of salt.
Demonizing Chris Brown while giving white abusers a pass plays into ugly racial stereotypes, say the activists plastering John Lennon albums and Michael Fassbender DVDs with warning stickers.
Today in books and publishing: Emma Thompson hurls Michel Houellebecq across the room; Books-A-Million exec says he was wrongly fired; out-of-print books are an untapped e-goldmine.
Discovered: FedEx and UPS won't ship research animals anymore; marijuana may slow aggressive cancer; smoking doesn't come cheap in New York; why rats binge on M&Ms.
Today in books and publishing: Veteran Knopf editor Ashbel Green dies; meet the movers in Brooklyn's book scene; how Norwegian publishing works.
When activists plastered Chris Brown albums with the warning "This Man Beats Women," the Internet (rightfully) cheered. But now that John Lennon albums are also getting stickered, online response seems conflicted.
Discovered: mothers' uteruses transferred to daughters; arsenic found in rice products; Hispanics in U.S. say they're American; evolution observed in bacteria.
Today in books and publishing: Apple and publishers settle in Europe; Marco Roth irritates Dwight Garner; movie moguls announce e-books venture; Wikipedia e-books.
When a 1700-year-old document mentioning Jesus' "wife" is unearthed, how do our heathen commenters respond? Not with shock, but with snark.
Discovered: BPA causes concern; thin people often less healthy than fat peers; Neandertals accessorized with feathers; baby boys shouldn't be given pacifiers.
Prominent German Pirate Party board member Julia Schramm has a vision for a utopian Internet: a "huge library" where "the knowledge and stories of all people are united, collected and archived" free of charge and free of "disgusting" intellectual property. It would have just one notable omission: Schramm's own book, Click Me: Confessions of an Internet Exhibitionist.
Today in books and publishing: sock-puppeting is going to have a huge 2014; books as "branding devices"; Fifty Shades-esque author becomes an instant millionaire; stay granted in Google suit.
Malaysia is trying to help parents spot homosexuality in their children. One sure sign? V-neck shirts. The news reminded one commenter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's insistence that Iran has no homosexuals.
Discovered: superstitious people don't work out; the unit for measuring space just got longer; kids consume adult levels of sodium; warp drive may be possible.
Three days after then-Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960, he invited two Newsweek journalists, bureau chief Ben Bradlee (who would go on to be a legendary editor of the Washington Post) and correspondent James M. Cannon (who would go on to be an aide to Gerald Ford). Lucky for us Cannon brought a tape recorder.
Today in books and publishing: Richard Burton's diaries; RIP Eva Figes; Iran's booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair; celebrities read Moby Dick.
The man who sparked an international crisis has been confirmed to be Alan Roberts. You may (or may not) remember him as the director of such softcore porn as The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood and The Sexpert.
Jen Doll examined the logrolling world of book blurbs today. One of our commenters finds that blurbs by critics are fine, but blurbs from authors are warning signs.
Discovered: The genes behind faces; an even closer look at molecules; job-related stress is killing us; this is your brain in isolation.
Today in books and publishing: Meet the oddball authority on poetry; e-book prices aren't falling for libraries; not-so-young adults; Anne Carson's new book.
In his widely discussed new book A Wilderness of Error, Errol Morris claims that journalists have helped keep an innocent man behind bars for life. Now Joe McGinniss, the author of a best-selling true crime book that assumes MacDonald's guilt, is swinging back forcefully at Morris.
Today, Jen Doll updated her original list of crutch words, but our commenters think there's still a few more out there. Here's the deal with one commenter's suggestion.
Discovered: Exercise counterintuitively reduces hunger; killer whales moms are mom enough; sexual arousal makes people do gross things; a newly discovered monkey stares deep into your soul.
Today in books and publishing: SEAL's nudges Fifty Shades off top spot; Lewinsky shopping book; iTunes is Vagina-shy; former Goldman banker gets memoir deal.
Russia's prime minister called for the early release of imprisoned Pussy Riot members today. One commenter took the occasion to imagine how Putin and Medvedev might resolve an argument.
Last time we reported on John Yudkin's 1972 book Pure, White and Deadly, we struggled to understand why publishers haven't already reprinted it. After speaking with Yudkin's estate executor and the editor behind a UK re-release, a picture emerges of a publishing industry excruciatingly slow to respond to the rapidly evolving demand from book buyers.
Discovered: remote-control cockroaches; female snakes that don't need a partner to reproduce; anti-obesity campaigns engender stigma; deaf gerbils given stem cell transplants hear.
A new, unlikely voice has been added to the 'Free Pussy Riot' refrain: Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Any more jail time would be "unproductive," he says.
Today in books and publishing: E.L. James' husband isn't a dom; Cosmopolis reconsidered; NYPD called in for Junot Díaz reading; Pussy Riot to storm e-readers.
In his tell-all, ex-Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette says he and fellow soldiers slept just before taking out Osama bin Laden. One of our commenters could relate.
Discovered: Evidence ancient Mars was dry; short kids depress moms; swine flu mutation; creating artificial memories in rat brain tissue is still a long way off from Total Recall.
Today in books and publishing: E-books are already cheaper; a new Oxford American editor; Hilary Mantel aims for her second Booker Prize; diversity in Top 100 Y.A. novels is lacking.
As we noted today, many in the tech world are calling for airlines to allow passengers to use gadgets during takeoff and landing. Over my dead body, says one of our commenters.
Discovered: Planets that could sustain life; the shiniest fruit; non-alcoholic wine defeats the purpose but bestows health benefits; weed linked to testicular cancer.
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