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U.S. open to Iran nuclear fuel deal despite doubts

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 19:30
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it was still willing to discuss a nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran, but only if Tehran takes clear steps to address international concerns about its nuclear program.


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Under Threat, Women Bond, Men Withdraw

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 19:15

MONTREAL--When we're under immediate stress --say, we are about to give a speech or about to be mugged--we either fight or flee, or so scientists have long preached. But some psychologists are now suggesting that this scenario may apply mainly to males. Men get antisocial under pressure, but women tend to react in the opposite way: they "tend and befriend," engaging in nurturing and social networking, perhaps as a way to protect their offspring, according to a theory proffered by neuroscientist Shelley Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles. Here at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2010 annual meeting, psychologist Mara Mather of the University of Southern California presented powerful new support for Taylor's hypothesis in the divergent ways that stressed men and women respond to faces. [More]

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Bomb in Pakistani city of Peshawar; 23 dead: police

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 18:57
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber attacked Pakistani police guarding a protest rally against power cuts in the city of Peshawar on Monday killing 23 people, police and government officials said.


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U.S. trying to help 40,000 Americans stranded in UK

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 18:46
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is trying to help some of the 40,000 Americans stranded in Britain due to air travel disrupted by volcanic ash from Iceland, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.


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Geologists Drill into Antarctica and Find Troubling Signs for Ice Sheets' Future

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 18:00

ERICE, Italy--If you think of Earth's poles as fraternal twins, the Arctic has been the wild one in recent years, while the Antarctic has been a steady plodder. Withered by summer heat, Arctic sea ice has shrunk to record low coverage several times since 2005, only to rebound to within 95 percent of its long-term average extent this winter. By comparison, Antarctica, with some 90 percent of the world's glacial reserves, has generally shed ice in more stately fashion.     [More]

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Celebrate Earth Day: Buy! Buy! Buy!

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 17:20

A casual spin last night through the pile of ads inserted inside my local Sunday newspaper made it clear to me that the best possible thing we all can do this week to honor Earth is to shop till we drop. [More]

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Goldman trader takes time off; reform momentum grows

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 16:47
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc said the bond trader at the center of a landmark civil fraud case against the firm is taking time off, and the regulatory fallout on Wall Street threatened to widen.


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Citigroup posts best results in nearly 3 years

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 16:28
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc posted a $4.43 billion first-quarter profit, its best result in nearly three years, as the economic recovery reduced the bank's credit losses and increased prices on even its worst assets.


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UK airspace to start reopening on Tuesday

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 15:42
LONDON (Reuters) - British airspace will start to reopen to flights from 0600 GMT on Tuesday after levels of volcanic ash from Iceland declined, UK air traffic controllers said on Monday.


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Al Qaeda's two top Iraq leaders killed in raid

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 15:41
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's top two leaders in Iraq have been killed, officials said Monday, in a strike the United States called a "potentially devastating blow" but whose impact analysts said may be limited.


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Novel Experiment Prepares to Join Dark Energy Hunt

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 15:00

An experiment is gearing up in Texas to take on one of the universe's biggest mysteries by compiling a three-dimensional map of the early cosmos. The hope is that the survey will help inform astronomers and cosmologists about the nature of dark energy, a mysterious and hypothetical agent thought to constitute nearly three quarters of the universe's mass. [More]

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What Is the Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 14:00

What is the memory capacity of the human brain? Is there a physical limit to the amount of information it can store? --J. Hawes, Huntington Beach, Calif.

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Broken Promises

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 14:00

What goes on in the brain of the groom who says “I do,” then has an affair? Or the friend who pledges to repay a loan but never does? Breaking a promise is a complex neurobiological event, a new study shows--and a brain scan may be able to predict those who are making false promises before they break their word.

Using functional MRI, scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland scanned the brains of subjects playing an investment game. Subjects assigned to be “investors” had to decide whether to pledge to share their money with other players who were “trustees.” This arrangement boosted the amount of money in the pot, but it also could result in a loss to the investor if the trustee chose not to share. Nearly all the subjects said they would give to the trustee--but in the end, not everyone kept this promise.

[More]
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Iraqi panel orders vote recount in Baghdad

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 13:36
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi election review panel on Monday ordered a recount of votes cast in Baghdad in the March 7 election, raising the prospect of a change in results that gave a cross-sectarian group backed by Sunnis a slim lead.


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Swept Away: New Modeling Buoys Raft Theory for Origin of Madagascar's Mammals

Scientific American Online - Mon, 2010-04-19 13:00

The African island of Madagascar, situated some 430 kilometers off the coast of Mozambique, is famous for its unique fauna, particularly its charismatic primates, the lemurs. But how the lemurs and other land mammals got there has proved an enduring mystery. To that end, new evidence supports a theory that some experts once considered unlikely: namely, that the forerunners of Madagascar’s modern mammals reached the island millions of years ago by drifting from the African mainland across the Mozambique Channel on giant rafts of vegetation ripped from the shore and launched out to sea by violent storms.

Reconstructing ancient dispersal routes is a complex exercise. On Madagascar this puzzle is complicated by the fact that the fossil record of mammals from the past 65 million years is meager. Based on the paltry available clues, some researchers thought the ancestral mammalian stock arrived via a landbridge that later disappeared with the shifting of landmasses. But geologic evidence of such landbridges is weak at best. Moreover, this theory cannot account for why the island’s many endemic terrestrial mammal species represent only four of Africa’s broader mammal groups called orders. And all of Madagascar’s land mammals are relatively small--no elephants, lions or giraffes there. If landbridges existed, critics argued, why did only small mammals belonging to these four orders make the trip over?

[More]
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Pakistan sidelines some officials after Bhutto report

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 10:51
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has sidelined eight officials, including policemen, responsible for the security of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after a U.N. report said she was poorly protected, a spokesman said on Monday.


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Iran says to start work on new enrichment plant

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 09:58
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will start work on a new uranium enrichment nuclear plant, a senior official said on Monday, part of a big expansion of its nuclear programme which has contributed to fears in the West it aims to build a bomb.


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China quake death toll nears 2,000

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 09:25
YUSHU, China (Reuters) - The official death toll from an earthquake on China's remote Tibetan plateau last week reached 1,944 on Monday, but rescuers dug out two more survivors who had been trapped under rubble for more than 100 hours.


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Fresh violence challenges Kyrgyzstan's leaders

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 08:29
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Ethnic violence broke out on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital on Monday, leaving five people dead and challenging the interim government's efforts to restore order after an uprising overthrew the president.


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Israel's Barak concerned by rift with U.S.

Reuters - Mon, 2010-04-19 08:26
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak voiced concern on Monday over a deep rift with the United States over settlement policy and said Israel should do more to try to achieve peace with the Palestinians.


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