Our weight might not be controlled solely by what we eat. When we eat, and when we get to sleep, may be just as important. A small study published this week in Current Biology found people who had been thrown off their circadian rhythms burn more calories in the late afternoon and evening hours than in the morning, when calorie burn is at its lowest. Later in the day, calorie burn increases by 10 percent, or about 129 calories.

GPS is vital to modern navigation, but it's extremely fragile. Never mind coverage -- if a satellite fails or there's a jamming attack, it quickly becomes useless. Scientists may have a much more robust answer, though. Scientists have demonstrated a "commercially viable" quantum accelerometer that could provide navigation without GPS or other satellite technology. The device uses lasers to cool atoms to extremely low temperatures, and then measures the quantum wave properties of those atoms as they respond to acceleration.

After suffering a couple technical glitches that have put NASA's Curiosity rover off its duties on Mars this year, the robotic explorer seems to be back in full health, having driven to a new site and drilled a sampling hole, according to NASA statements. That hole is its 18th successful drilling assignment, according to NASA. It targeted a type of rock geologists with the mission have been eyeing for more than a month, but failed to successfully drill at a previous site. The drill was out of commission between late 2016 and this May as engineers addressed a problem with the instrument.

New research shows that electronic cigarettes contain chemicals that cause heart damage, adding to the growing list of concerns about their safety. The study, which will be presented next Monday at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions meeting in Chicago, investigated the effect that e-cigarettes have on the endothelial cells that line the inside of the body's blood vessels. Endothelial cells produce nitric oxide, a molecule that helps keep blood vessels healthy and control blood pressure levels.

All perception is created by the brain, which is therefore illusory and limited by its own function. Because of a certain way the neurons within our brain get fired on specific inputs, they give a distinct output or reaction expressed in our physical reality. A visual of a pizza advertisement gives you a pleasurable craving which can then be converted into an output action, for example.

Facebook is the least trustworthy of all major tech companies when it comes to safeguarding user data, according to a new national poll conducted for Fortune, highlighting the major challenges the company faces following a series of recent privacy blunders. Only 22% of Americans said that they trust Facebook with their personal information, far less than Amazon (49%), Google (41%), Microsoft (40%), and Apple (39%).

With his new book, The Creative Spark, Agustín Fuentes, a primatologist and anthropologist currently at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, boldly puts forth the idea that what makes humans special is creativity. The ability of humans to switch back and forth between considering what is, and dreaming of what might be, and to then put these thoughts into actions (often collaboratively), has brought us a very long way from our primate origins to the tool-wielding, world-shaping force of nature of today.

Lobster fishers catch fewer market-sized lobsters, and see fewer fertile females, in areas close to fish farms in Nova Scotia, according to new research led by Inka Milewski, a research associate at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Lobster fishers working in Port Mouton Bay, Nova Scotia, keep detailed records of when and where they fish and how many lobsters they catch.

Academic publisher Elsevier has repeatedly made the news for its battle with Sci-Hub, the "Pirate Bay" of science. However, while Elsevier is using copyrights to protect its business, academic-insiders accuse the publisher of "anti-competitive" actions.

People who travel internationally as part of their work are more likely to engage in risky behaviour while away from home, according to a new study by Kingston University, Affinity Health at Work and International SOS Foundation. While 67 per cent of international business travellers surveyed reported being more engaged with their jobs due to travel, the research by occupational psychology expert Dr Rachel Lewis from Kingston Business School and Affinity...

Controversial study suggests non-meat eaters are more at risk of physical and mental illness, despite leading healthier lifestyles

IN 2013, Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page announced the formation of a new Alphabet entity dedicated to solving the pesky puzzle of mortality. Since then, the billion-dollar longevity lab known as Calico—short for California Life Company—has been trying to tease apart the fundamental biology of aging in the hopes of one day defeating death.

Trove of DNA from prehistoric inhabitants reveals that the continents’ early settlers moved far and fast.

As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about when it comes to artificially intelligent machines being able to perform many tasks faster and better than humans can, potentially stealing our jobs in the future, and presenting what some technologists worry is an existential threat to humanity, now it appears AI will soon be able to match humans at being, well, human, too.

Preliminary finding turns heads at neuroscience meeting

Egyptologists stumble across ramp that helps explain how huge blocks of stones were hauled into place.

Built from the bottom up, synthetic cells and other creations are starting to come together and could soon test the boundaries of life. By Kendall Powell.

An admittedly intoxicated American Airlines baggage handler fell asleep on the job and ended up flying from Kansas City to Chicago in the belly of a Boeing 737. The employee, who works for American subsidiary Piedmont Airlines at Kansas City International Airport, was working on the ramp for American Flight 363 on Saturday Oct. 27, when he apparently took a nap inside the cargo hold before the flight.

Cigarette use among American adults is at the lowest it's been since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started collecting data on the issue in 1965, according to a report released Thursday. "The good news is that cigarette smoking has reached unprecedented lows, which is a tremendous public health win, down to 14 percent from over 40 percent in the mid-1960s," said Brian King, senior author of the report and deputy director for research translation at the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

On Aug. 4, 1972, the crew of a U.S. Task Force 77 aircraft flying near a naval minefield in the waters off Hon La observed 20 to 25 explosions over about 30 seconds. They also witnessed an additional 25 to 30 mud spots in the waters nearby. Destructor sea mines had been deployed here during Operation Pocket Money, a mining campaign launched in 1972 against principal North Vietnamese ports.