“It’s not rocket science,” says Russell Foster, explaining how most of us are deprived of sleep and in need of an early night. No, but it is neuroscience — and as Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, he should know. Foster is one of the U.K.’s leading experts on sleep, and an evangelical advocate of us all getting eight undisturbed hours each night, not just to improve our physical […]

Archaeologists in northwestern Poland have a  found a suspected vampire The burial was found in a  cemetery in the town of Kamien Pomorski A stake had previously been  driven through one leg of the skeleton This was designed to stop it rising from the  grave after its death It also had a small rock in its mouth to  stop it sucking blood from victims The body is  believed to date […]

TORONTO : There are numerous well-publicized examples of people reportedly discovering famous faces on everyday objects, from the visage of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich to the Virgin Mary on a flour tortilla and Elvis Presley on a potato chip. Is it a miracle? Are these people just plain crazy? Or is it something else? Toronto researchers have found that “face pareidolia,” where onlookers report seeing well-known countenances in […]

Austrian Conchita Wurst has arrived home to a heroine’s welcome after the bearded drag queen won the Eurovision Song Contest Sporting high heels, butterfly eyelashes and a full beard, Wurst – whose birth name is Tom Neuwirth – swept to victory with her Rise Like a Phoenix ballad before a global television audience of about 180 million people in 45 countries “I share the opinion that this was not a […]

The Western Australian government caught 172 sharks, and killed 50 of the largest animals, as part of a culling program that has sparked anger among conservationists. The three-month program, which ended last week, used baited lines attached to floating drums to catch sharks off popular beaches in Western Australia following a spate of fatal shark attacks in waters off the state in recent years. The scheme, which was part of […]

Imagine getting a quarter of a million followers on Twitter – with just one tweet. That’s what happens when you’re Kollywood’s biggest film star. India’s Twitter users may still be busy with the latest ups and downs of the country’s longest ever general election, but film superstar Rajinikanth has proved a welcome distraction. He has surprised India’s social media community by getting tens of thousands of followers before he’d even […]

Fears for the fate of more than 200 Nigerian girls turned even more nightmarish Monday when the leader of the Islamist militant group that kidnapped them announced plans to sell them. “I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video first obtained by Agence France-Presse “Girls, you should go and get married,” […]

 An Egyptian court has recommended the death sentence for the leader of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood and 682 supporters, state television said on Monday. The same court also handed down a final capital punishment ruling for 37 others. Charges in both cases, which were tried by the same judge, are related to violent riots in the central Egyptian city of Minya in August, including the murder of a police officer. […]

This squirrel had grown tired of its boring diet of nuts and berries, so it decided to see what all the fuss about that “hunting” business was all about. It also realized that going after a predator would probably be a much more fulfilling use of its lightning speed and vicious biting attacks. The first animal in sight seems to have been this snake, which was a bit taken back […]

Injected with fresh hope and urgency after the discovery Tuesday of more signals that appear to be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s so-called black boxes, investigators began looking Wednesday toward what new challenges may await if that proves true. A raft of new questions awaits: How sure are experts that the detected signals are, in fact, from the pingers? Pretty darned sure, but not certain. One of two signals detected […]