Free Republic

If you were neglected as a child or if your parents paid more attention to your siblings, take heart. It might not be your fault. It might be because you're ugly. That's what Andrew Herrell's research at the University of Alberta suggests. Herrell, the director of the population research lab in the university's sociology department, studied parents' behaviour in grocery stores, where children often suffer minor injuries. He was trying to understand what factors contributed to those injuries. What he found would stun most fair-minded parents - ugly kids were neglected more often than attractive ones. "They'll deny it," said...

Physik Astronomie Louisiana State University 14.01.2005 LSU researcher solves ancient astronomy mystery An ancient mystery may have been solved by LSU Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Bradley E. Schaefer. Schaefer has discovered that the long-lost star catalog of Hipparchus, which dates back to 129 B.C., appears on a Roman statue called the Farnese Atlas. Hipparchus was one of the greatest astronomers of antiquity and his star catalog was the first in the world, as well as the most influential. The catalog was lost early in the Christian era, perhaps in the fire at the great library in Alexandria. The...

Papers have been flapping with new headlines about the latest in a long line of alleged dinosaur ancestors of birds. This one is claimed to be a sensational dinosaur with feathers on its hind legs, thus four ‘wings’.1 This was named Microraptor gui—the name is derived from words meaning ‘little plunderer of Gu’ after the paleontologist Gu Zhiwei. Like so many of the alleged feathered dinosaurs, it comes from Liaoning province of northeastern China. It was about 3 feet (1 meter) long from its head to the tip of its long tail, but its body was only about the size...

CAIRNS, Australia, (AFP) - A strong cocktail of toxins from the potentially deadly irukandji jellyfish may hold a remedy for impotent men, according to an Australian researcher. James Cook University academic Lisa-Ann Gershwin said she believes a sting from an irukandji tentacle, which causes excruiating pain, anxiety, paralysis and a potentially fatal rise in blood pressure, also causes prolonged erections in male victims. "This is a bizarre extra symptom of irukandji syndrome in addition to the really dreadful life-threatening symptoms the syndrome gives," Gershwin said. At least two people are known to have died from irukandji stings and hundreds of...

LONDON (AFP) - Soviet dictator Stalin was a madman who could have benefited from a psychiatrist's attention and millions of lives could have been saved, a British researcher claimed. Stalin, who ruled Russia from 1924 until his death in 1953, suffered from dementia caused by heart attacks, according to Dr George El-Nimr. "This (Stalin's dementia) might be an explanation for the florid paranoia, dimming of his superior intellect and the unleashing of his most sadistic personality traits," Nimr told the annual conference of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Harrogate in northern England. Nimr and two colleagues, Dr Baseem Habeeb...

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - A jury on Tuesday found a researcher guilty of 47 of the 69 charges he faced after reporting that samples of plague bacteria were stolen from his Texas Tech University lab. Thomas Butler, 62, closed his eyes, shook his head and appeared to fight back tears as the verdicts were read after two days of deliberations. The charges stemmed from an investigation following his report to police Jan. 14 that 30 vials of the potentially deadly plague bacteria - once known as the Black Death - were missing. The report sparked a bioterrorism scare in this...

<p>When the results of a widely publicized study last year showed that ecstasy could cause Parkinson's-like brain damage, it seemed unlikely that the drug would ever be considered a viable form of therapy.</p> <p>The drug, a staple among teen ravers, was considered by experts to be too dangerous to warrant further study.</p>

<p>Dr. Peter Safar, a medical pioneer at the University of Pittsburgh who spent a half-century perfecting landmark treatments in emergency care and became known as the father of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, died Sunday night from complications of cancer. He was 79. Safar, who was convinced that too many people die needlessly before reaching emergency rooms, is best known for crafting modern first-aid techniques now used inside and outside hospitals, including mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing, a hallmark of CPR. His internationally recognized work was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in medicine, most recently in 1994.</p>