HuffPost Science: Russia Moon Probe; Cosmological Constant; 'Supergene'

January 17, 2013 Subscribe · Forward Russia Sets Date For Return To Moon Russia will resume a long-dormant quest to explore the moon by sending an unmanned probe there in 2015, the head of the space agency was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Continue reading... Right Again, Einstein! Grisly Remains Revealed By Storms May Date Back To Iron Age Bug Study Reveals First-Ever 'Social Chromosome' Skeleton Exposed By Storms In Scotland's Shetland Islands Tied To Iron Age Burial Shaman Stones Found In Panama Include Magnetic Rocks, Crystals Violent Video Games, Blamed For Promoting Violence, May Benefit Brain WRAY HERBERT Unshakable Humanity: Altruism and Disaster Will the precocious altruism of childhood survive severe tribulation, or will kids revert back to their earlier self-centeredness? The Sichuan earthquake provided a natural "stress test" to examine the strength of youthful generosity. Continue reading... JEFF SCHWEITZER Space Faces, Causality and the Origin of Religion We cannot seem to turn off our pattern-seeking or cause-effect neurons. Sometimes the results are benign. Unfortunately, our incredible talent for seeking patterns and linking cause to effect has a dark side: We see patterns where none exist and cause where only chance reigns supreme. Continue reading... PATRICIA ADAIR GOWATY Sex Science: Controls Can Keep You From Fooling Yourself What might any scientist, perhaps one like A. J. Bateman, who did a foundational study in sexual selection, have done to save himself from his likely mistakes? Bateman might have used a control experiment to test if the assumptions of his methods were met. Continue reading... MICHAEL D. PURUGGANAN Sequestering Science The science enterprise of the country -- the sweeping investments in research that has powered the U.S. economy for much of the last 60 years -- is seriously threatened by the havoc that sequestration could bring. Continue reading... CLAY FARRIS NAFF The Top 5 Reasons You Aren't Going to Heaven But Shouldn't Lose Hope Apart from a scientific inclination to adopt the simplest explanation that fits the facts, it seems to me that the whole idea of heaven is an incoherent hodgepodge of false comfort and delusion. Continue reading... Received this from a friend? Sign up for alerts from The Huffington Post here Unsubscribe here.