Scientists have discovered amino acids, the building blocks of life, in a meteorite where none were expected. The finding adds evidence to the idea that some of life’s key ingredients could have formed in space, and then been delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite impacts. “This meteorite formed when two asteroids collided,” said Daniel […]

Do you live in a college town?  Take a look around, chances are it’s one of the brainiest cities in America. Portfolio Magazine recently ranked 200 cities in order of relative brainpower.  Using new American Community Survey data, it looked at cities’ average earning power and median level of educational attainment to determine which towns […]

A year and a half after it was passed by the House of Representatives, the Senate passed the Food Safety and Modernization Act (SB510) by a 73-25 margin.  The bill has to be brought into line with the House’s version before President Obama can sign it into law, but food-safety advocates have hailed it as […]

Five international news outlets published a selection of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, provided by the website WikiLeaks.  The disclosure of the cables, most of them from the past 3 years, offers a rare view of the secretive world of high-level diplomacy.  As such, it could complicate relations with a host of friendly and […]