Discovered: Video games can help dyslexic kids read; pregnancy increases foot size; around 100 million sharks are killed annually; mammalian sperm swims upstream.
Discovered: Borneo orangutans exhibit Ebola-like antibodies; NOAA's post-Sandy map of the East Coast; climate change could curtail Indian monsoons; bat-proofing wind turbines.
Has anyone checked Aaron Copland's grave for signs of vigorous rolling? Copland, the great American composer, who was openly gay and whose politics were socialist-leaning, keeps showing up on the Republican campaign.
Today in books and publishing: Bertelsmann buys full stake in Random House Mondadori; taking advantage of Amazon's new monthly subscriptions; overdue fees waived for canned goods; Macmillan ceases printing dictionaries.
Discovered: Cockatoos start using tools; party alignment is not encoded in our DNA; citizen scientists sift through cancer data; math class is tough—and sometimes painful.
Discovered: First sighting of spade-toothed whale; huge temperature spike predicted in this century; natural insect repellant; how an ancient volcano eruption precipitated acid rain.
Today in books and publishing: Booksellers turn away Amazon-published books; James Franco releases a chapbook; R.I.P. Han Suyin; Pippa fights for her right to party.
Discovered: Curiosity dispels theory of Martian methane; the flu could presage diabetes; political opinions can't outlive three questions; archaeologist says he's found Europe's oldest town.
Discovered: A solar lining for the U.S. economy; USDA not keeping pace with imported meat; horses get a Hendra vaccine; maybe don't dry your clothes indoors.
Today in books and publishing: DFW's greetings from Los Angeles; Amazon takes down author reviews; kids' books sales rise; critics pan Pippa's book.
Discovered: Twitter memes foreseen with 95 percent certainty; detecting light from extinguished stars; sea levels rising faster than previously thought; deepest supernova observed.
Discovered: Koshik the elephant can say "hello"; turning hurricane research into music; UK officials keep finding illegal waste sites; how to reduce livestock ammonia emissions.
Today in books and publishing: Chelsea's Printed Matter drenched; New York library patrons get week-long extension; D.C. Barnes & Noble to close; happy National Novel Writing Month.
Discovered: A protoplanet with no signs of aging; hypnosis helps with hot flashes; even nocturnal redheads could get skin cancer; guys who work out have stronger sperm.
Discovered: A faster way to make biocrude; the most exhaustive bird family tree yet; solar cells made solely from carbon; aphid-resistant raspberries.
You know times are tough for indie musicians when even Chan Marshall—who released a Top 10 Billboard album and played sold-out concerts this year—is bankrupt.
Today in books and publishing: Publishers close but many stores open; 419 author takes Canada's big literary award; Mo Yan-brand liquor; will Penguin have to change its look for the merger?
Discovered: Smoking bans get heart health results; boys lean more than girls; music illiterates don't get emotion either; Curiosity verifies volcanic soil on Mars.
Disney bought a majority share of LucasFilm today, announcing plans for a new Star Wars movie as soon as 2015. One of our commenters thinks he already knows what they'll call it.
Discovered: British bee output plummets; documentarians stumble on polar bear sanctuary; how E. coli learned to attack plants; new spiders discovered dwelling in Brazilian trees.
A good deal of the false Sandy information circulating on social media originated with one user: Twitter's @comfortablysmug. Now that his identity has been made public, he's being pilloried on the Internet.
Today in books and publishing: Everyone's thoughts on the world's biggest publisher; bookstores hit by storm; the author's cut on a pick-your-price deal; Khaled Hosseini to publish new book.
Discovered: We may not have to get yearly flu shots in the near future; brain stimulation causes Tourette's tics; looking for ALS answers in yeast; what separates overeaters from food addicts?
Discovered: what's to be learned from a Frankenstorm; U.N. warns of amplified infections in a warming world; life in coal towns is deadlier; U.S. coal emissions are down but worldwide coal use heats up.
Today in books and publishing: Raising James M. Cain's long lost novel; Neil Young wages Heavy Peace; nation's highest court to determine legality of reselling books; Penguin's performance.
With News Corp.'s late bid to absorb Penguin into HarperCollins thwarted, Penguin Random House is now a done deal. Pearson and Bertelsmann have confirmed previously announced plans to merge the two major publishers.
Vice tried to pull a fast one on the Internet today with their post "Is This Obama's Kenyan Birth Video?" It wasn't, obviously, and Wire commenters pointed out a bunch of dead give-aways.
Discovered: Population of man's rarest best friend dwindles; hermit crabs are terrible friends; the song of the sand; candy corn is social media's favorite candy.
Discovered: High CO2 levels make office workers dumb; drought drags down GDP; there's no reason why green farming can't make money; warming oceans drive plankton toward the poles.
News of a potential Penguin-Random House merger has birthed a "binders full of women"-level meme on the literary Internet. In a (very unscientific) Twitter poll on which absurd name the new company should adopt, Random Penguin wins by a landslide.
Today in books and publishing: Midnight in Paris didn't have permission for Faulkner quote; "vagina" scandalizes evangelicals; John Grisham read Fifty Shades; Jacques Barzun dies.
Discovered: Winged dinosaurs arrived earlier than thought; too much trust in chemotherapy; don't let your toddlers drink eyedrops; a study that studies studies which boast "very large effects."
Discovered: Nuclear disaster lingers in Japanese waters; the hole in the Antarctic ozone hasn't been this small since the '90s; the problem with algae-derived biofuels; the amazing shrinking ancient hippo.
Publishing's Big Six might soon be consolidated to a Big Five. Representatives from Pearson have confirmed that they're in talks to sell Penguin to Bertelsmann, which frightens industry professionals already battered by sweeping layoffs.
Last year, scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge discovered an 18-mile schism forming on Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. They now say that rift could break soon, launching a massive iceberg into the Amundsen Sea.
Today in books and publishing: Reviews are in on Franzen-adapting play; closing Amazon's tax loopholes; only Harry Potter can save Bloomsbury now; telling designers what to read.
Discovered: Recreating the Easter Island statue march; scientists create embryo from three people; brain waves separate video game pros from n00bs; bacteria that act like electric cables.
Today we learned that the the New York Islanders will soon call the Barclays Center home. Some think the NHL team's move from Long Island to Brooklyn is strange. But, as one commenter points out, the Islanders' new home stays true to the team's name.
Discovered: The temperature at which malaria thrives; 140 billion cubic meters of gas goes up in flames every year; seafloor methane could rise; could iron boost fish populations?
Today in books and publishing: Imprints shuffle at Simon & Schuster; Spider-Man musical debacle to be detailed in new book; Unitarians launch banned books club; Kindle lands in Japan.
Discovered: Men more likely to be attracted to—and project attraction on—their female friends; Office of Naval Research builds mechanical fish; smallest photographs; diagnosing sex addiction.
"Surely it will sell like hotcakes," Jen Doll wrote today about Pippa Middleton's forthcoming book on entertaining Celebrate. The line got one commenter wondering where that common phrase came from.
Discovered: Paul Ryan is right—sea levels aren't lowering; "hurry, eat oysters," say oyster conservationists; pediatricians offer organic advice; how will A123 Systems' bankruptcy affect electric cars?
Tom Wolfe's new novel Back to Blood comes out today, opening the floodgates for reviews. This time around, the man in the white suit has taken on Miami. But how accurate is Wolfe's depiction of the city?
Today in books and publishing: People under 30 most likely to read; who keeps buying O'Reilly's books?; Nick Hornby finds Virginia Woolf snobby; Jackie Collins recaps Revenge.
Glitches in Amazon's hosting service took down websites like Reddit, Imgur, GitHub, and a bunch of others today, much to the chagrin of homebodies everywhere. But one commenter took the blackout as a blessing, noting Mother Nature's splendor today.
Discovered: Cooking helped humans evolve large brains; beluga vocalizations strikingly similar to human speech; how the dung beetle keeps its cool; measuring consciousness.
Discovered: New accelerators lessen environmental impact of physics research; Cato Institute tries to quash climate findings; Lorca earthquake linked to well digging; rice crops speed warming.
The L'Aquila earthquake devastated central Italy in 2009, killing over 300 people. But an Italian judge's decision to convict seismologists for failing to predict the quake flies in the face of basic science.
Today in books and publishing: Conflicting takes on Why I Left Goldman Sachs; Amazon "are not pleasant people to do business with"; the genre markings of literary fiction; Animal Farm to be filmed.
Today, Rebecca Greenfield wrote about young, traditional media-shunning cord-cutters. In the comments section, we heard from a 60-year-old who cut her cable subscription—but is keeping her newspaper subscription.
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