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Scientists have found a gene variation that can cause adultsto become aggressive, antisocial adults when they wereabused as children. This is the first link betweenantisocial behavior and a specific gene.

It helps explain why, although almost all adult criminalshave been abused as children, the majority of abusedchildren grow up to be normal adults.

About one-third of men have the “low-activity” version ofthe gene for monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), an enzyme thatbreaks down neurotransmitters, such as serotonin anddopamine, that give people a positive outlook on life. Theabsence of this gene is linked to aggression.
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Now that “Signs” is in movie theaters across the country,U.S. newspapers are finally paying attention to the subjectof crop circles, after ignoring them for years. Somejournalists are writing surprisingly open-mindedarticles?including our own hometown paper, the San AntonioExpress-News. Other papers are using the movie as an excuseto spread lies, propaganda and disinformation.

You might expect this from the tabloids next to the grocerystore checkout?but the Boston Globe? One expects objectivereporting from such a venerable newspaper as this. Instead,their reporter Vanessa Jones starts out by saying cropcircles remind her of ?Cap?n Crunch or Froot Loops? and goesdown from there.
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Mario Martinez, of Vanderbilt University, is investigatingthe causes of stigmata, the mysterious wounds resemblingthose Jesus received when crucified that sometimes appear onpeople’s bodies.

Usually it turns out to be self-mutilation, he says, but inrare cases, true stigmata occur. ”I wouldn’t try to reduceit to a black or white thing,” he says. ”My job is to rule(things) out. That’s really the job of the scientist.”
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Ice ages may occur when our Solar System passes through thespiral arms of the Milky Way during our orbit around thecenter of the galaxy. Dr. Nir Shaviv of the University ofToronto has found evidence linking changes in the cosmicrays reaching the Earth and the times that ice ages occurredin the past.

He believes that the cosmic rays come from stars thatexplode as the Earth exits one of the Milky Way’s spiralarms. The increased cosmic rays then trigger ice ages on Earth.If this is true, we won?t have another ice age for tens ofmillions of years, since our Solar System is not due toleave another spiral arm for a very long time.
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