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Below is today’s selection of the most interesting science, health, and tech news reports. For analysis and commentary from around the Web, check out the hot topics page. For Human Nature’s takes on some of these stories, visit the blog. (I generally post the link first and write the blog entry later, so check back.) To add your own take, open or join a discussion thread in the Fray—and please link to the original story so others can participate intelligently in the conversation.
April 9
The suit against a woman for smoking in her apartment has been settled
(Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times)
More on the two-faced baby
(Nick Schifrin / Saini Sunpura, Associated Press)
Three deaths from donated cancerous organs
(Maryclaire Dale / Frank Eltman, Associated Press)
April 7
Baby born with two faces
(Parul Gupta, Agence France-Presse)
A gene for ruthlessness
(Richard Ebstein et al, Genes, Brains and Behavior)
The average husband costs a woman 7 hours of housework per week
(Frank Stafford et al, University of Michigan)
Most normal-weight people are “obese” by fat percentage
(Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, Mayo Clinic)
Genetic differences between identical twins
(Anne Casselman, Scientific American)
“Male monkeys prefer boys’ toys,” but female monkeys don’t prefer girls’ toys
(Ewen Callaway, New Scientist)
Using naked body scanners to customize your clothes
(Boonsri Dickinson, Discover)
A 20-cent-a-bag fee for paper or plastic grocery bags
(Sharon Pian Chan, Seattle Times)
The recession hits cosmetic surgery
(Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times)
Female attractiveness reduced to a software algorithm
(Amit Kagian, Vision Research)
Child gymnastics causes 27,000 injuries per year
(Lara McKenzie et al, Pediatrics)
18 years in prison for knowingly spreading HIV
(Canadian Press)
Viagra as a heart disease treatment
(Bill Mah, CanWest News Service)
More height genes identified
(Tim Frayling et al, Nature Genetics)
Growing human tissues in labs to test drugs
(Patrick Barry, Science News)
NATO accepts U.S. missile defense plan
(Steven Erlanger and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times)
A progress report on creating virtual worlds
(Colin Barras, New Scientist)
Social networking meets virtual reality
(New Scientist)
Heart surgery with snaking robots
(Kristina Grifantini, Technology Review)
A genetic drug cure for viral obesity?
(New Scientist)
Programming fish to turn themselves in
(Jay Lindsay, Mail & Guardian) April 3
Smoking bans increase drunk-driving deaths
(Scott Adams and Chad Cotti, Journal of Public Economics)
Human embryos created in cow eggs
(Maggie Fox, Reuters)
Thailand bans castration
(Associated Press)
Genes that cause nicotine addiction
(Thorgeir Thorgeirsson et al, Nature)
Coffee can prevent Alzheimer’s
(Xuesong Chen et al, Journal of Neuroinflammation)
Trans fats that are good for you
(Flora Wang, University of Alberta)
Fat kids have fewer cavities
(Dorota Kopycka-Kedzierawski et al, Community Dentistry & Oral Epidemiology)
That hogwash about drinking 8 glasses of water
(Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology)
The latest on cars that can drive themselves
(Fraunhofer Institute)
Seat belts on women protect fetuses
(Mark Pearlman et al, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology)
Why East Asians don’t drink
(Hui Li et al, PLoS One)
Japan moves toward cloned meat and milk
(Miho Yoshikawa, Reuters)
April 2
The latest on U.S. airport use of naked body scanning
(Stuart Brown, Scientific American)
Airport passenger forced to extract her nipple ring
(Associated Press)
Laser hair-removal devices for your home
(Rhonda Rundle, Wall Street Journal) ($)
“Satisfactory sexual intercourse … lasts from 3 to 13 minutes”
(Eric Corty and Jenay Guardiani, Penn State University)
Surgeons begin transplanting “repaired” kidneys
(Rachel Nowak, New Scientist)
Progress toward regenerating human limbs
(Muneoka, Han, and Gardiner, Scientific American)
Prenatal sex selection among Asian-Americans
(Randolph Schmid, Associated Press)
The risk-taking logic of the teenage brain
(Jay Giedd, Journal of Adolescent Health)
Fat discrimination is as common as race discrimination
(Rebecca Puhl et al, International Journal of Obesity)
How chimps judge character
(Francys Subiaul et al, Animal Cognition)
Sending images through the Web to trigger epileptic seizures
(Kevin Poulsen, Wired)
China’s plan for Olympic weather engineering
(Mark Williams, Technology Review)
Soldiers use iPhones and Wii remotes to operate drones
(Paul Marks, New Scientist)
Baring your genome through social networking
(Emily Singer, Technology Review)
The tracking software that nailed Eliot Spitzer
(John Borland, Technology Review)
Insurers cover online visits to doctors
(Stacey Burling, Philadelphia Inquirer)
Firms use brain waves and pulse rates to test TV ads
(Stuart Elliott, New York Times)
Brain damage from boxing may be overrated
(Stefan Hähnel et al, American Journal of Neuroradiology)
Should men campaign for male birth control pills?
(Adam Voiland, U.S. News)
A kidney removed through a vagina
(Hospital Clinic, Barcelona)
Here come the self-propelling rectal probes
(Charles Choi, LiveScience)
Stopping the Philippines’ black market in organs
(Jim Gomez, Associated Press)
A lot more people are paranoid than you imagined
(Daniel Freeman et al, Wellcome Trust)
The commercial race for space tourism
(Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American)
Global warming information leads to apathy
(Paul Kellstedt et al, Risk Analysis)
Identical twins, identical lifestyles, different weights
(Carson Chow and Kevin Hall, PLoS Computational Biology)
A device that turns thought into speech
(Brittany Sauser, Technology Review)
Building a brain from a computer
(Jonah Lehrer, Seed)
The limits of digital organisms
(Steve Talbott, The New Atlantis)
Midlife belly fat increases your risk of dementia
(Rachel Whitmer, Neurology)
