Apparently, Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University in northern England, knows where to find a good party. Till took a second look, or rather, a second hear, at the 5,000-year-old Stonehenge and discovered that its huge stone slabs reflected sound perfectly, making the site the perfect place to listen to repetitive, trance-like music.

Ah, New Year's. The time for spirited debauchery, reflection on the year gone by, and resolutions for the year to come. On New Year's Day, most people wake up determined (through the haze of their hang-overs) to do something different this year, whether it be losing weight, learning a new skill, or to quit biting their nails. That's admirable, but for the risk-takers and more impulsive among us, keeping a new year's resolution may be near impossible, and it's due to the dope—or lack, thereof.

Back in pre-historic times, say, 130,000-30,000 years ago, Europe was dominated not by quaint cafes and dainty bakeries, but by a group of not-quite humans called Neanderthals. In the form of a common insult, their legacy lives on today, and perhaps more accurately than we think: new research suggests that the Neanderthal's extinction was not due to climate change (as was previously argued) but rather to their inability to beat the competition, which came in the form of Cro-Magnon—the first anatomically modern human population.

There is no denying we humans are obsessed with real estate. We always like to think we've landed ourselves a prime piece of land to settle on, and that outlook extends past your home, vacation home, and country and all the way out to the Earth itself.

The stereotype of pregnant women experiencing bizarre cravings has long had people believing that all expectant mothers go a little crazy when it comes to food and drink over the course of nine months. Though the image of a petite woman screaming at her husband at 2:00 in the morning, "I WANT BROCCOLI AND STRAWBERRY SYRUP!" may lead us to imagine that all pregnant women gain extra, non-baby weight, a recent study shows that those who are more likely to over-gain weight during pregnancy are overweight or obese mothers-to-be who underestimate their weight at the beginning of term.

Clear skies, crystalline blue waters, and…scalding hot sand? The latter is not part of a beach day in paradise, and paradise is exactly what management at Dubai's Palazzo Versace hotel and condominium are aiming to give each and every one of their guests and residents. In Middle Eastern Dubai, where temperatures can reach a boiling 122 degrees Fahrenheit, those visiting during the summer months may not be able to enjoy sunbathing on the beach. Refusing to allow Mother Nature to interfere, the Palazzo has hired Hyder Consulting to fix the problem.

Poo on you, wash your hands.

You just peed, wash your hands.

If you lived in a University of Denver undergraduate dorm, signs touting this rhyme might grace your hallways. In an attempt to encourage students to wash their hands more frequently, specifically after going to the bathroom, researchers at UD tried various types of messaging to get the idea across: gross, germ, and you-will-get-sick.

Common wisdom dictates that in order to learn a complicated skill, it is best to break the skill down into parts, conquer simpler steps first, and then incrementally move forward, eventually getting to the hard stuff. For example, you don't just tackle a multivariable equation, you start with easier examples. First, you learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Then, you learn how to solve 2x=8, then x + y = 7, and so on and so forth until you are aptly equipped to solve 2(5x + z) = 30x + 3y + 10.

Weeks before President-Elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Defense was finalized, the U.S. Department of Defense was blazing full speed ahead. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (a division of the D.O.D.) recently awarded a contract to GE Global Research, the technology development branch of the mammoth General Electric Company, for a two-year, $1.1 million project to develop a Biotic Man.

No matter how many times you experience déjà vu in your life, it never ceases to be a bizarre occurrence. While science has pretty much explained all the mystery out of awesome and strange things like the Northern Lights, eclipses, and those Magic Eye posters, it has failed to come up with a thorough explanation for déjà vu. Anne Cleary, a psychologist at Colorado State University, decided to put to the test that strange feeling where you could swear you had already experienced a present situation.

With all the talk of cougars, starter wives, and sugar daddies floating around these days—not to mention sky-high divorce rates—conventional wisdom is that the initial passion that brings two people together simply cannot last. Monogamous, till-death-do-us-part love is out of fashion. However, a recent study is doing its part to reverse that common outlook and bring a little bit of hope to those still wishing to grow old with someone.

If a man walks into a bar….who laughs? Liberals or conservatives? Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University, and Elisabeth Malin, a student at Mount Holyoke College, looked into just that question in a recent Boston study. The two came up with a list of 22 jokes – conventional, quirky, corny, clever, etc. – and tracked the reactions of about 300 people who were asked to rate the jokes on a scale of 1 (not funny at all) to 9 (hilarious).

Thanks to the glorious invention of television recording devices, like TiVo and DVR, boob tube connoisseurs can watch their favorite shows and fast-forward through all those pesky commercials (I'm looking at you, Geico). This is great news for everyone, except advertisers. As the popularity of DVR continues to grow, 21st century Mad Men are scrambling to come up with new ways to get people to pay attention to their ads. But a new study by a group of Boston College researchers shows that watching ads in fast-forward can still influence consumer behavior, if done in the right way.

Ahhh, marathon Sunday. Pull on the spandex, pack up the Gu, and…strap on your ice skates? This is marathon-ing, Dutch-style. Since 1909, the Dutch have taken wildly to the frozen streets to cheer on participants in the Elfstedentocht, the 11-city, 125-mile grueling skate race completed on ice through Holland's extensive system of canals and across frozen lakes. That is, when the temperatures are low enough and the ice is thick enough.