As scientific mysteries go, this is the big one. How did life on Earth begin? Not how did life evolve, but how did it start in the first place? What was the initial spark that lit the fire of evolution?
Charles Darwin solved the mystery of life's wondrous diversity with his theory of natural selection. But even he was flummoxed by the ultimate mystery of mysteries: what led to the origin of life itself?
We're all aliens... how humans began life in outer space
GOP spending plan would cost 700,000 jobs, new report says
A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday.
The report, by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, offers fresh ammunition to Democrats seeking block the Republican plan, which would terminate dozens of programs and slash federal appropriations by $61 billion over the next seven months.
X-Rays and Unshielded Infants
With technologists in many states lightly regulated, or not at all, their own professional group is calling for greater oversight and standards.
For 12 years, the American Society of Radiologic Technologists has lobbied Congress to pass a bill that would establish minimum educational and certification requirements, not only for technologists, but also for medical physicists and people in 10 other occupations in medical imaging and radiation therapy.
Is fracking causing Arkansas earthquakes?
The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded three earthquakes in Arkansas near the small town of Greenbrier, north of Little Rock.
A preliminary 4.7 magnitude quake was recorded at 11 p.m. Sunday night, and according to the AP, was felt in four other states. A 3.8 quake followed just 18 minutes later, with a third 3.6 magnitude earthquake recorded at 2:46 a.m. Monday morning. No damage or serious injuries have been reported.
Iraqi Women Work to Halt Bombers, but Paycheck Is Elusive
The women charged with thwarting Iraq’s female suicide bombers spend their days in cramped metal sheds at police checkpoints and lobbies of government offices, running their hands over the black-robed bodies of other women.
The Iraqi authorities say the searches have helped to curb female suicide attacks, once a scourge of this still-dangerous city. And they say the teams of women, known as the Daughters of Iraq, play a crucial role in a country where rigid divisions between the sexes make it awkward, sometimes unthinkable, for male police officers to frisk women and girls in search of the telltale lump of a gun or an explosive belt.
Synthetic marijuana widely used at Naval Academy, some midshipmen say
A synthetic form of marijuana is widely used at the U.S. Naval Academy because it cannot be detected in routine drug tests, according to several former midshipmen who have been removed from campus for using or possessing the substance.
Since its introduction at the academy last year, synthetic marijuana has become popular among rank-and-file midshipmen and on the football and wrestling teams, the former midshipmen said. Some isolated corners of the historic Annapolis campus, they said, have become well-known gathering spots for smoking it.
Assassin maintains he can't remember shooting RFK
More than four decades after Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, his convicted murderer wants to go free for a crime he says he can't remember.
It is not old age or some memory-snatching disease that has erased an act Sirhan Bishara Sirhan once said he committed "with 20 years of malice aforethought." It's been this way almost from the beginning. Hypnotists and psychologists, lawyers and investigators have tried to jog his memory with no useful result.
'I believe in UFOs... and I've seen them': Former Canadian defence minister accuses American government of cover-up
He is on an advisory body to the Queen, works as an environmental campaigner and is credited with integrating Canada's armed forces.
But aside from all this, the ex-Canadian defence minister says UFOs are real, aliens have visited Earth and the U.S. government is covering up information about them.
Past medical testing on humans revealed
Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.
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