Scientists have used a technique originally developed for economic study, Granger causality, to become the first to overcome a significant challenge in brain research: determining the flow of information from one part of the brain to another.

For years, scientists have used scanners to identify the brain regions involved in particular mental tasks. But they cannot get that data fast enough to trace the flow of information from one area of the brain to another.

ozens of cars in the Boston area are testing the latest generation of an MIT mobile-sensor network for traffic analysis that could help drivers cut their commuting time, alert them to potential engine problems and more.

In the CarTel project, Professor Hari Balakrishnan and Associate Professor Samuel Madden of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science use automobiles to monitor their environment by sending data from an onboard computer — which is about the size of a cell phone — to a web server where the data can be visualized and browsed. They do so via pre-existing WiFi networks passed during a trip.

You may have seen it last week. There were charges of fraud levelled at the Obama campaign because donations from names like 'Doodad Pro' were not reported by his campaign. In the last election, there were claims that Republicans invoked anti-fraud measures to suppress legitimate voting by groups that tend to vote Democratic.

In both cases, there was more hyperbole than substance. There is fraud, but the immediacy of the internet has magnified it into being much more substantial than it is and University at Buffalo Law School Professor James A. Gardner cautions against giving too much importance to charges of voter fraud in American elections and supposed incompetence in administering elections. The process in the overwhelming majority of elections, he says, is working well.

Babies make sense of the world long before they can talk, says Brigham Young University psychology professor and study author Ross Flom. Their new study shows that even babies as young as five months can distinguish an upbeat tune, like Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from the Ninth Symphony, from gloomier compositions like that minor key stuff by Chopin(1).

By age nine months, babies can also do the opposite and pick out the sorrowful sound of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony from a pack of happy pieces.

What's the worst that could happen after eating a slice of pepperoni pizza? A little heartburn, for most people.

But for up to a million women in the U.S., enjoying that piece of pizza has painful consequences. They have a chronic bladder condition that causes pelvic pain. Spicy food -- as well as citrus, caffeine, tomatoes and alcohol-- can cause a flare in their symptoms and intensify the pain. It was thought that the spike in their symptoms was triggered when digesting the foods produced chemicals in the urine that irritated the bladder.

However, researchers from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine believe the symptoms -- pain and an urgent need to frequently urinate -- are actually being provoked by a surprise perpetrator. Applying their recent animal study to humans, the scientists believe the colon, irritated by the spicy food, is to blame.