A controversial fertility doctor today told British reporters that he has cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the uteruses of four women. The physician, Panayiotis Zavos, who operates fertility clinics in Kentucky and Cyprus, says none of the embryos gave rise to successful pregnancies, but he is confident that baby cloning is just around the corner, The Independent reports.  [More]

It's long been assumed that marine mammals in the pinniped group – seals, sea lions and walrus – evolved from a land-based common ancestor, but until now, no definitive fossil evidence had materialized. [More]

If you needed another reason to eat nuts, mice that eat an abundance of walnuts may be less likely to develop breast cancer, according to new study presented Tuesday at the meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver. [More]

In the 1950s prizewinning biologist and doctor Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in a dark basement laboratory in Pittsburgh. Progress was slow, so to clear his head, Salk traveled to Assisi, Italy, where he spent time in a 13th-century monastery, ambling amid its columns and cloistered courtyards. Suddenly, Salk found himself awash in new insights, including the one that would lead to his successful polio vaccine. Salk was convinced he had drawn his inspiration from the contemplative setting. He came to believe so strongly in architecture’s ability to influence the mind that he teamed up with renowned architect Louis Kahn to build the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as a scientific facility that would stimulate breakthroughs and encourage creativity.

Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But now, half a century after Salk’s inspiring excursion, behavioral scien­­-tists are giving these hunches an empirical basis. They are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and alert, and lead to relaxation and social intimacy. Institutions such as the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in San Diego are encouraging interdisciplinary research into how a planned ­environment influences the mind, and some architecture schools are now offering classes in introductory neuroscience.

One of the toughest things for people to do is to anticipate sudden change. Typically we project the future by extrapolating from trends in the past. Much of the time this approach works well. But sometimes it fails spectacularly, and people are simply blindsided by events such as today’s economic crisis.

For most of us, the idea that civilization itself could disintegrate probably seems preposterous. Who would not find it hard to think seriously about such a complete departure from what we expect of ordinary life? What evidence could make us heed a warning so dire--and how would we go about responding to it? We are so inured to a long list of highly unlikely catastrophes that we are virtually programmed to dismiss them all with a wave of the hand: Sure, our civilization might devolve into chaos--and Earth might collide with an asteroid, too!

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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

Just when you thought you’d heard everything, scientists have found that the reason you can hear everything--including things that are very quiet--is because your ears have tiny tubelike motors that mechanically amplify sounds. [More]