|  Mock Mars Mission: Are the Spacesuits Really Accurate?  | Editor's Note: In the Utah desert, scientists are attempting to recreate what a real-life mission to Mars might be like, and SPACE.com contributor Elizabeth Howell is along for the ride. HANKSVILLE, Utah – About four miles into a canyon walk near the Mars Desert Research Station here, my shoulders started to hurt. Some of my crewmembers experienced severe fogging in their helmets during past "Marswalks" in the Utah desert, but the ventilation in my helmet was keeping at least the front of my visor clear.
| Read More » Will Your New Boss Be a Jerk? New Computer Program Can Tell It's the lament of many hiring managers and Boards of Directors who discover, too late, that the new executive has some major personality problems. A team of researchers at Binghamton University claims it has developed a computerized content-analysis tool that reliably and validly measures narcissistic and psychopathic traits in leaders of Fortune 100 companies. The analysis program employs a built-in dictionary of words, phrases and rules that can be used to help predict certain negative personality traits. The study's co-author William Spangler, an associate professor in the School of Management at Binghamton, said the program first looks for self-focus words, such as "I," "me," "my," "mine" and "myself." It then looks for words related to several personality traits. Read More » Entrepreneurial Spirit Burns Brightest in Minority Students The drive among students to become entrepreneurs when they grow up decreases as they get older, new research shows. Read More » 'I Quit' Will Be Familiar Refrain in 2014 Research from CareerBuilder discovered that 21 percent of full-time employees plan to change jobs this year — the largest percentage of expected turnover seen in the post-recession era and up from 17 percent last year. Many factors could be contributing to the expected rise in turnover, including employees' overall dissatisfaction with their job, their chances of being promoted within the company and their work-life balance. The study shows that among those who are dissatisfied with their job, 58 percent plan to change jobs in the new year. The most cited reasons for employee dissatisfaction were concerns over salary and not feeling valued. The research also revealed that 45 percent of workers who are dissatisfied with advancement opportunities at their current company expect to look for new work this year. Read More » New Record for Human Brain: Fastest Time to See an Image  | The human brain can achieve the remarkable feat of processing an image seen for just 13 milliseconds, scientists have found. This lightning speed obliterates the previous record speed of 100 milliseconds reported by previous studies. In the study, scientists showed people a series of images flashed for 13 to 80 milliseconds. "The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts," study leader Mary Potter, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement." That's what the brain is doing all day long — trying to understand what we're looking at." [10 Odd Facts About the Brain]
| Read More » Widespread Damage to Syria's Ruins Seen from Space  | Archaeologist Jesse Casana couldn't have foreseen the violence that would break out in Syria less than a year after he left his dig site in summer 2010. Casana, a professor at the University of Arkansas, was director of an expedition at Tell Qarqur, an artificial mound in northwest Syria built up through 10,000 years' worth of debris left by human occupation. He had to cancel his 2011 field season, and because of the ongoing war in Syria, he hasn't returned since.
| Read More » Potato-Shaped Mars Moon Phobos May Be a Captured Asteroid  | The origin of the two small moons of Mars, called Phobos and Deimos, have been shrouded in mystery since their discovery in 1877. The surface of the moons and their orbits hint at different origins. But new models provide stronger suggestions that Phobos, at least, may be a captured asteroid.
| Read More » Are You Getting Enough Exercise? 3 Tips to Be Sure A study published in the January issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports Medicine found that both men and women overstated the time they spent on moderate exercise by nearly an hour. Read more tips on her blog, Health in a Hurry! Read More » Toilet Paper Could Hide a Cancer Warning Sign, Doc Says  | Toilet paper containing red ink could disguise a dangerous medical condition, one doctor believes. Paper that is decorated with pictures or designs that include red ink could look bloody when wet, and traces of red blood in the toilet are one of the most common signs of colon cancer, colorectal surgeon Dr. Guy Nash of Poole Hospital, in England, wrote in a letter published Jan. 15 in the journal BMJ Case Reports. "Those patients bleeding will miss real blood, and those not bleeding will report 'blood' in the toilet mistakenly," Nash said. Colon cancer, or colorectal cancer, develops in the cells that line the large intestine (colon) or rectum.
| Read More » Brain Structure May Predict Pain Sensitivity  | Some people feel pain more intensely than others, and new research suggests differences in pain sensitivity may be related to differences in brain structure. In other words, people who spend more time in "default mode" may be less sensitive to pain.
| Read More » Klondike: The Real Story Behind the Gold Rush Miniseries  | Discovery Channel is now prospecting the hearts of television viewers around the world with their first-ever scripted miniseries, called "Klondike" — a period piece set at the end of the 19th century during a brief but fervent gold rush in the Klondike region of the Yukon. In the three-part miniseries that launches on Monday (Jan. 20) at 8 p.m. EST, two friends in their early 20s climb snowy passes, raft rapid-strewn rivers, dodge wolves, and nearly lose everything several times as they make their way into the lawless gold rush town of Dawson City. Filming was done in the Canadian province of Alberta, south of Klondike but still full of the icy and rugged conditions that Klondike miners would have faced. "It was a hard challenge, especially in period costume because you are not equipped for the world you are in," lead actor Richard Madden told LiveScience yesterday (Jan. 16) on the gold carpet of Klondike's premiere.
| Read More » Extreme El Niños Could Hit Twice As Often  | The most intense El Niño events may soon hit every 10 years, instead of every 20 years, thanks to warming water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, a new study predicts. When changing wind patterns start piling up warm water in the eastern part of the equatorial Pacific, the redistribution of hotter water triggers changes in atmospheric circulation that influences rainfall and storm patterns around the world — an El Niño. During extreme El Niños, sea surface temperatures warmer than 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius) develop in the normally cold and dry eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. "Under global warming, the barrier to convection shifts," Cai told LiveScience.
| Read More » Genome of the Blood-Sucking Hookworm Decoded  | Scientists have decoded the genome of a lowly, blood-sucking hookworm, an advance they say could lead to cures for hookworm infection, a painful condition afflicting more than 700 million people worldwide, mostly in underdeveloped countries. But the worm's unique relationship with the human immune system means the new findings may also provide insights into treating autoimmune diseases rampant in the United States, such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, asthma and allergies. An international team of scientists focused on one of the two main hookworm species that affects humans, Necator americanus.
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