MEMORANDUM FOR: President Barack Obama FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved. As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, a pall hangs over his upcoming presidency amid an unprecedentedly concerted campaign to delegitimize it. Unconfirmed accusations continue to swirl alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “Russian hacking” that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House.

Ever get annoyed by people on social media who share 'profound' quotes, or use meaningless, intelligent-sounding soundbites in arguments? A new study has shown that there is a link between these people and low intelligence. It found that those who are receptive to pseudo-profound, intellectual-sounding 'bulls***' are less intelligent, less reflective, and more likely to be believe in conspiracy theories, the paranormal and alternative medicine.

A top counterintelligence official has denied any morale drop among the intelligence community following President Donald Trump's ascent to the White House. "I don’t see a dip in morale," Bill E

Both geniuses and madmen pay attention to what others ignore. By Dean Keith Simonton.

Ahead of FBI Director James Comey's public testimony this week, the plot was already thickening over Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Now, Senate Intel Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Chuck Todd that there is "circumstantial evidence of collusion" and "direct evidence" of deception on Russia.

The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Trump associates’ ties to Russia is looking more compromised every day. Yochi Dreazen has a great rundown of the bizarre recent behavior of the committee’s chair, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who sure seems like he’s bending over backward to protect the White House by canceling hearings and making odd, anonymously sourced claims. But if Nunes and the Trump administration truly are trying to scuttle the House Intelligence investigation, they’re playing whack-a-mole.

When China boldly seized a U.S. underwater drone in the South China Sea last December and initially refused to give it back, the incident ignited a weeklong political standoff and conjured memories of a similar event more than 15 years ago. In April 2001, just months before the 9/11 attacks gripped the nation, a U.S. Navy spy plane flying a routine reconnaissance mission over the South China Sea was struck by a People’s Liberation Army fighter jet that veered aggressively close.

Possible reasons for humanity's failure in finding intelligent alien civilizations in the universe.

The animals of neuroscience research are an eclectic bunch, and for good reason. Different model organisms—like zebra fish larvae, C. elegans worms, fruit flies, and mice—give researchers the opportunity to answer specific questions. The first two, for example, have transparent bodies, which let scientists easily peer into their brains; the last two have eminently tweakable genomes, which allow scientists to isolate the effects of specific genes. For cognition studies, researchers have relied largely on primates and, more recently, rats, which I use in my own work.

Last night for the third time in as many months I found myself explaining to someone raised outside of a devoutly religious environment that religious people are not stupid simply because they believe nonsensical things. Each of the three times I’ve had this conversation it’s been with a different person whose professional life has increasingly come to focus on critiquing religion. Each time I’ve encountered the same bewilderment, and each time I’ve covered the same ground in an attempt to explain how and why some people who are very intelligent can...

A Senate committee has asked Trump campaign aides to hand over notes and records from meetings with Russian officials and businesses, as congressional investigations between the president’s associates and Moscow appear to regain momentum. In a letter to Carter Page, a former Trump foreign policy adviser, dated 28 April, the Republican and Democratic leadership of the Senate intelligence committee asked him to attend a closed hearing and provide a...

U.S. intelligence officials reportedly warned their Israeli counterparts to exert caution in sharing top secret information with Donald Trump’s administration for fear of it being passed to Russia and then to Moscow’s ally and Israel’s arch-enemy, Iran. Discussions between U.S. and Israeli security services prior to Trump’s inauguration on January 20 gave rise to concerns that sensitive intelligence might exchange hands between him and the Russian government, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported in January.

Israel was the U.S. ally that collected the highly classified intelligence that President Donald Trump reportedly shared in a meeting with Russian officials last week, NBC News confirmed with three government officials with knowledge of the matter. In an off-camera briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he could not comment on the news. The press secretary said, however, that the U.S. appreciates the "strong relationship that we have with Israel when it comes to intelligence sharing."

Vladimir Putin has said he is willing to provide a transcript of Donald Trump's meeting with senior Russian officials, insisting the US President did not share classified intelligence. News agencies had initially suggested the Russian leader had offered to release an audio recording of the contentious meeting with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, but subsequent reports showed he had used a word more accurately translated as transcript.

The genes account for just a tiny fraction of the variation in test scores, experts say. Many are yet to be found, and environmental factors are also greatly important.

Senior Russian intelligence and political officials were caught by American intelligence agents discussing how to insert influence over Donald Trump’s campaign last year, the New York Times reports. American spies collected information last year on conversations that focused on Paul Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman, and Michael Flynn, who later got a job in the White House as a national security adviser but was forced to step down from that post because he misrepresented conversations he had with Russians to Vice President Mike Pence.

A US company refused to comply with a top-secret order that compelled it to facilitate government surveillance, according to newly declassified documents. It's thought to be only the second instance of an American company refusing to comply with a government surveillance order. The first was Yahoo in 2008. It was threatened with hefty daily fines if it didn't hand over customer data to the National Security Agency.

Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of the popular secure messaging app Telegram has revealed in a series of tweets that U.S. intelligence agencies tried twice to bribe the company's developers to weaken encryption in the app, presumably so it would be easier for the agencies to obtain communications sent via its users. Durov also says he was pressured by the FBI to do so.

Lavish London mansions. A hand-painted Rolls-Royce. And eight dead friends. For the British fixer Scot Young, working for Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic meant stunning perks – but also constant danger. His gruesome death is one of 14 that US spy agencies have linked to Russia – but the UK police shut down every last case. A bombshell cache of documents today reveals the full story of a ring of death on British soil that the government has ignored.

His nuclear research helped a judge determine that former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko had been assassinated – likely on Putin’s orders. Just months after the verdict, the scientist himself was found stabbed to death with two knives. Police deemed it a suicide, but US intelligence officials suspect it was murder.