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Why do antidepressants work only for the deeply depressed? A neuroskeptical look

Neuroskeptic takes a sharp look at how our expanding definition of depression paralleled our expanding use of antidepressants -- and perhaps led to antidepressant's poor performance in the less...

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Video: Physics Getting Freaky on Bed of Nails

As-yet-unexplained laws of physics keep popping up in the darnedest places, like, for example, this bed of nails. Perfectly arrayed in horizontal rows, one would expect their pattern to break down when...

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The Kiss in History

I have a guest post up at Wonders and Marvels: Classicists and anthropologists have traced kissing history over millennium. The earliest and best literary evidence we have dates to around 1500 B.C....

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115-Year-Old Medical X-Ray Machine Comes Back to Life

A team of physicists, engineers and radiologists recently revived a first-generation X-ray device that had been collecting dust in a Dutch warehouse. The antique machine still sparked and glowed like a...

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The Strange Past and Promising Future of the Lobotomy

By Annalee Newitz, io9 If you thought that scene in Sucker Punch where the doctor gave lobotomies with an ice pick was artistic exaggeration — well, it wasn’t. That’s exactly how Walter Freeman, a...

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Ancient Greek Computer Had Surprising Sun Tracker

The world’s oldest astronomical calculator is famous for having intricate gear systems centuries ahead of their time. But new work shows the Antikythera mechanism used pure geometry, as well as flashy...

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Human Spaceflight’s 50th: The Glorious Past and Uncertain Future

The 50th anniversary of the first human space flight comes at a bittersweet moment in the history of space travel. After exactly 30 years of ferrying astronauts and equipment into orbit, the space...

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Book Excerpt: Space Shuttle Owners’ Workshop Manual

The following is an excerpt from the new book NASA Space Shuttle Owners’ Workshop Manual. Chapter 3: Anatomy of the Space Shuttle Author David Baker worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo, and Space...

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The Crisis That Hit Physics 100 Years Ago

One hundred years ago, the greatest scientific minds of Europe met to address a perilous state of affairs. During the previous 20 years, curious scientists had uncovered new phenomena — including...

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How to Pass the Turing Artificial Intelligence Test

Are you human or a machine? Prove it, by passing the Turing Test -- a test of the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behavior.

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Why the Turing Test Is a Flawed Benchmark

Some of today's computer systems are displaying intelligence far beyond the capability of a human, so it's time to ask: Should a machine demonstrate intelligence by emulating a human?

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Tour the Tomb of NASA’s First and Last Nuclear Reactor

A gallery of images showing NASA's first and only nuclear reactor, which was built in the 1960s to research nuclear-powered airplanes, then eventually nuclear-powered space rockets. After being...

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Galileo to Turing: The Historical Persecution of Scientists

Alan Turing was chemically castrated after admitting to homosexual acts in the 1950s, but he is just one of a long line of scientists who have been persecuted for their beliefs or practices.

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The Classic, Beautiful and Controversial Books That Changed Science Forever

The classic books that record the revolutionary moments in science may not be intelligible to most people, so we asked scientists to explain what was, and still is, great about the seminal works in...

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