Metro.co.uk brings us yet another report on the problems with cleanliness:

The modern trend for using antibacterial soaps is actually harming young people by making them more prone to developing allergies.

It seems teenagers are becoming over-exposed to a compound called triclosan, widely used in household products such as soaps, toothpaste, pens and nappy bags.

Food cans, toothbrushes and garbage bags [...]

Pack up your things! Discover reports that the Cassini Saturn probe has found an oxygen atmosphere around Rhea:

Other atmospheres known to exist throughout the solar system, like that of Titan as well as Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede, were discovered and studied from afar. Rhea’s, however, is so thin that this direct pass through it was [...]

History doesn’t repeat in circles. It makes a spiral.

Found via keepyourpebbles, from the US Geological Survey (at which you can read more about the concept.)

She starts with “Autumn Leaves” and goes on from there – just about 20 minutes of playing and talking enthusing.

More on the effervescent Ms Kurstin at TED and beyond.

SONG: “Beyond the Ends of the Earth”. (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “100 Year Starship: Nasa’s plan to colonise galaxy”, The First Post, 27 October 10, as used in the post One-way ticket out.

ABSTRACT: Mmm. November. Lonely month. Traditional month. Minor key waltz month. Going out of our heads [...]

I am not making that up. Treehugger.com has the photographic evidence of flying squid:

“From our observations it seemed like squid engaged in behaviors to prolong their flight,” she said. “One of our co-authors saw them actually flapping their fins. Some people have seen them jetting water while in flight. We felt that ‘flight’ is more appropriate because it [...]

Click to embiggen

I’ll just quote the Wikimedia Commons text on this one. It tells a better story than I could.

A relatively benign merman complete with scales caught in the Baltic Sea in 1531, according to Johann Zahn’s sources.

In: Specula physico- mathematico-historica notabilium ac mirabilium sciendorum by Johann Zahn. published 1696 at Augsburg, Germany.

Library Call Number Q155 .Z33 1696.

The caption [...]

Yes. Well. New Scientist’s never-so-aptly-named “Short Sharp Science” blog revels in the discovery that the female orgasm is neurologically linked to pain:

To get his results, Komisaruf somehow persuaded nine women to stimulate themselves to orgasm while having their brains scanned in a functional MRI machine. Taking snapshots of activity throughout the event allowed Komisaruf and his colleagues to [...]

That’s a rough outline of what The Telegraph says scientists are doing in what could wind up being a dramatic medical breakthrough:

The study, Pilot Investigation of Stem Cells in Stroke (PISCES), is the first of its kind in the world.

It will test whether implanting stem cells can treat damaged areas of the brain and improve quality of life [...]