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Smart News / Smart News Science

How Your Brain Reassures You That You’re Better Than Other People

The “superiority illusion” may depend on how connected certain parts of your brain are and how many dopamine receptors you have

Meditation May Make You Nicer

Around 50 percent of people who recently meditated gave up their seat for a person in crutches compared to just 15 percent of people who had not meditated

If Your Plane is Going Down, It’s Better to Sit in the Back

Discovery TV crashed a Boeing 727 in the Sonoran desert to answer the question: where’s the safest place in the plane?

James Cameron Decides to Let Scientists Use His Awesome Submersible

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution inherits the submarine, which they will use to built even better submersibles

Baby-Making Efforts May Produce Best Results in Winter And Early Spring

Men produce more and healthier sperm during this time of year

In a type Ia supernova, and the new Iax mini-supernova, a white dwarf star (the one with the disk) eats a nearby star. When it grows big enough, it explodes.

Astronomers Discover Baby Supernovae

This new type of mini-supernova doesn’t destroy the star

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Dinosaurs Have Feathers, Sure, But We May Have Got the Colors All Wrong

Dinosaurs had colorful plumage, but the palette may have been all wrong

Methane on the Breath Is an Indication of Obesity

Manipulating the gut microbes that cause obesity’s smell may help researchers figure out ways to help patients lose weight

Fast-Melting Arctic Ice Caused Massive Spring Snowstorms

Record lows of Arctic sea ice also accounts for last year’s unusually warm spring

A handsome great tit

Attractive Great Tits Raise Healthier Babies, Even If They’re Not Genetically Related

Males may be selecting for females with brighter cheeks and bolder stripes, which indicate the females’ genetic strength and parenting skills

The orange dot on the right is the anterior cingulate cortex.

Can A Brain Scan Predict Your Future Criminality?

Brain scans revealed which prisoners got picked up again after their release

Are You Here on Earth Just to Make Babies?

If so, what does that really mean for what we do each day, our culture and our society?

A reconstruction of Daisy Morris’ dinosaur, Vectidraco daisymorrisae

Five-Year-Old Girl Discovers Fossil of Previously Unknown Pterosaur

A brand new pterosaur and a 300-million year old crab, the fossil finds of kids

Can Watching One Video Help You Die Better?

Since most of us don’t see emergency medicine all that often, we tend to have an unrealistic idea about just how end of life care works

Various iterations of the Müller-Lyer Illusion. For most people reading this, the bottom lines will seem longer than the top, despite being the same length.

Are Optical Illusions Cultural?

People from around the world respond to optical illusions different. But why?

For Truck Drivers, Coffee May Save Lives

Drivers who drank caffeine-laden beverages were 63 percent less likely to crash than those who did not - even if they were more sleep deprived

How Does One Actually Shrink a Head?

How does one take a regular sized human skull and miniaturize it?

This cicada is part of Brood XIX, a 13-year recurrent swarm from the southern US.

After 17 Years, the Northeast Is About to Be Blanketed by a Swarm of Cicadas

An inch and a half long with bright red eyes, the swarm of Brood II cicadas is coming

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From the Big Bang to the End of the Earth and Everything in Between, the Two Minute History of America

A fun video by a Minnesota high school student tries to capture all of human history in just two minutes

Part of a whale backbone on the ocean floor

‘Bone-Eating Zombie Worm’ And Eight Other New Species Live on the First Whale Skeleton Found in Antarctica

The Minke whale skeleton was probably on the seafloor for at least several decades and is only the sixth natural whale carcass ever found

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