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Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Chaeronea is the site of the famous Battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE) Phillip II of Macedon’s decisive defeat of the Greek city-states. At Chaeronea in Boeotia (north of Corinth) Phillip and his allies from Thessaly, Epirus, Aetolia, Northern Phocis and Locrian defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys is an ancient Egyptian text in which the two goddess-sisters call the soul of the god Osiris to rejoin the living. The poem takes the form of a call-and-response liturgy and the dual entreaties of the two sisters echoed each other in their attempts to symbolically revive the god....

Lost in the U.S. health care debate is whether the country’s citizens are hurting themselves with bad habits. The bottom line is mixed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Americans are imbibing alcohol and overeating more yet are smoking less (black lines in center graphs). Some of the behaviors have patterns; others do not. Obesity is heaviest in the Southeast (2010 maps). Smoking is concentrated there as well....

Do you ever feel like some days drag on longer than others? That feeling may be psychological, but actual day length really does fluctuate–by a fraction of a millisecond. (A millisecond is one thousandth of a second) The length of a day, which is measured by the time it takes Earth to rotate once on its axis, can be measured to an accuracy of about 10 microseconds, or 10 millionths of a second....

By Susan Young of Nature magazineA team of researchers has corrected a faulty gene in induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from skin cells of people with an inherited metabolic liver disease. The researchers then developed the stem cells into something resembling liver cells. Their work is published today in Nature.Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (A1ATD) is the most common genetic disease of the liver, and is caused by a single nucleotide change in the gene that codes for alpha-1-antitrypsin (A1AT), an enzyme inhibitor that normally protects bodily tissues....

The first of a two-part series on energy options. So where does Canada go from here? The combination of a presidential veto threat on the Keystone XL pipeline, an uncertain State Department outcome, low oil prices and environmental challenges to alternative pipeline proposals has put the northern nation in a financial and policy bind. The uncertainty raises the question of whether Canada will make a renewed push to develop new oil sands pipelines in its own country that have also stalled or are moving slowly....

In recent years, astronomers have found themselves faced with a nagging inventory problem. Received wisdom holds that dark matter and dark energy make up 95 percent of the universe, and ordinary matter, or baryons–the subatomic particles that form planets, stars and the like–account for the remainder. The problem is, the luminous matter detected with the aid of optical telescopes has amounted to a mere 10 percent of the expected ordinary matter, and the baryons inferred by other means bring that total to only 50 percent....

Your car’s air conditioner might be your best friend on a hot summer day, but it is certainly no friend of the environment thanks to the ozone-depleting refrigerant used to keep the cockpit cool. This could change in a few years as carmakers in some parts of the world are being forced to charge their AC units with chemicals that have lower global warming potential. General Motors Co. has put its considerable weight behind a new, and supposedly greener, AC refrigerant called HFO-1234yf, which is being developed by Honeywell and DuPont....

Fusion-powered rockets that are only the size of a few refrigerators could one day help propel spacecraft at high speeds to nearby planets or even other stars, a NASA-funded spaceflight company says. Another use for such fusion rockets is to deflect asteroids that might strike Earth and to build manned bases on the moon and Mars, the researchers say. Rockets fly by hurling materials known as propellants away from them....

A new “bioreactor” could store electricity as liquid fuel with the help of a genetically engineered microbe and copious carbon dioxide. The idea—dubbed “electrofuels” by a federal agency funding the research—could offer electricity storage that would have the energy density of fuels such as gasoline. If it works, the hybrid bioelectric system would also offer a more efficient way of turning sunlight to fuel than growing plants and converting them into biofuel....

The common ulcer-causing bug linked this summer to reduced rates of childhood asthma and allergies may also help protect adults against one type of cancer, according to a new analysis. Researchers report today in the journal Cancer Prevention Research that they found the stomach microbe Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) may help prevent a major form of cancer of the esophagus (the muscular tube that carries food and drink from the throat to the stomach)....

“This is a highly charged story,” began Olof Ramstrom, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, explaining why his group today awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to a trio of scientists who spent decades developing the lithium-ion battery. These batteries, small and powerful as compared with older battery technology, made possible pocket-sized mobile phones, laptop computers, electric cars and renewable-energy devices such as solar panels that can help address the problems of climate change, Ramstrom said....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. On March 15, a 950-ton partially assembled pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Miami suddenly collapsed onto the busy highway below, killing six people and seriously injuring nine. Forensic engineers are taking center stage in the ongoing investigation to find out what happened and why – and, crucially, to learn how to prevent similar tragedies in the future....

More than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez foundered off the coast of Alaska, sea otters still dig up oil in their hunt for clams in Prince William Sound. Nearly 25 years after an oil storage tank ruptured near mangrove swamps and coral reefs of Bahia Las Minas in Panama, oil slicks still form in the water. And some 40 years after the fuel-oil barge Florida ran aground off Cape Cod, the muck beneath the marsh grasses makes the area smell like a gas station....

The drowned remnants of an ancient microcontinent may lie scattered beneath the waters between Madagascar and India, a new study suggests. Evidence for the long-lost land comes from Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometers east of Madagascar. The oldest basalts on the island date to about 8.9 million years ago, says Bjørn Jamtveit, a geologist at the University of Oslo. Yet grain-by-grain analyses of beach sand that Jamtveit and his colleagues collected at two sites on the Mauritian coast revealed around 20 zircons — tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that are exceedingly resistant to erosion or chemical change — that were far older....

Mrs. K. questions who she really is. Her family, her career, her entire life seem pointless. She feels anxious and broods. She sometimes screams at her children for no reason and then feels guilty. She has toyed with the idea of suicide. In contrast, Mr. M. believes that he possesses extraordinary gifts. He spends long nights writing down grandiose plans to save the world and sends his manuscripts to numerous publishers....

Houston, we’ve got a thrumming sound In a photo op plucked straight from nerd heaven, a phalanx of stormtroopers converged this week on Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport to escort a NASA official carrying the lightsaber prop wielded by actor Mark Hamill in the 1983 movie Star Wars. The event was hatched to drum up press for the geek icon’s scheduled flight to and from the International Space Station on board the shuttle Discovery in October, in celebration of the movie’s 30th anniversary, according to news reports....

Are you always on the hunt for a way to iron out the time lines etched in your face? Behold: a new study has found that multiple injections of Restylane, a popular “skin filler” believed to temporarily zap lines by literally filling them in, actually stimulates the skin to produce collagen, a protein that keeps it firm and supple but dwindles with age and sun exposure causing sagging and wrinkling. “We found that in addition to filling up space, these injections induce robust production of collagen, thought to give rise to the smooth contour of the skin,” says Frank Wang, a clinical research fellow in the dermatology department at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor and co-author of the study published in the February issue of Archives of Dermatology....

February 2 The Exploratorium science museum presents a discussion of art, emotion and the mindfgbk—the third in a series of five Saturday afternoon mind-themed lectures. Also, visit an exclusive exhibit of renowned psychologist Paul Ekman’s photographs, featuring a study of the facial expressions of the isolated South Fore people in New Guinea. The exhibition marks the 40th anniversary of his influential work, which led to a new understanding of the universal nature of facial expressions and emotions....

By Kathy Finn NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Perhaps no other city in the United States is as well-suited as New Orleans to wed a scientific discussion of environment with a celebration of the occult. That’s exactly what unfolded on Saturday at “Anba Dlo,” an annual New Orleans festival where prominent scientists joined with practitioners of the voodoo religion to look for answers to the challenges of dealing with water. In “The Big Easy,” a low-lying Louisiana city devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and threatened by the BP oil spill of 2010, water is a subject nearly impossible to ignore....