Via Wired’s Danger Room comes news from the US Army’s Future Combat Systems.

They need a new name because we’re already living in the future:

The Army has decided that

Discover raises a slippery space question… as if NASA didn’t have enough scandal to deal with lately:

When missions lasted no more than a few weeks at a time, discretion was

From New Scientist comes news of the womb-on-a-chip:

Fujii’s team has created a “lab on a chip” that is 2 millimetres across and 0.5 millimetres high, in which up to 20

New Scientist reports that predatory jumbo squid have returned to California’s coast… and may be there to stay:

Ferocious, pack-feeding jumbo squid have invaded waters

Nature plumbs the depths of one of the most mysterious processes in medicine.

Researchers have found that the placebo effect – when “fake” medicine creates real results… Read the rest “Pleasure and placebo”

The New Yorker, of all publications, has a fascinating Ian Parker article on the natural history of the bonobo – the sexy primate that’s supposed to choose orgies over fighting… Read the rest “The Noble Bonobo”

Nature brings new observations of Ice Volcanoes in Outer Space.

Cook speculates that liquid water deep within Charon’s core is mixed with ammonia, which acts like antifreeze and

New Scientist reports on African primates using natural contraceptives from, of all things, plums:

Like the synthetic progestogens used in the pill, phyto-progestogens have a hormonal

Science News reports on Trouble in Paradise – how feelings of “social defeat” could be responsible for triggering schizophrenia, which might explain why the otherwise… Read the rest “Schizophrenia in Paradise”

On the one hand:

China had more wars in cold weather

Most of the armed conflicts in eastern China over the past 1,000 years were triggered by food shortages caused by climate, say researchers.