In 1884, a delegation of international representatives convened in Washington, D.C. to recommend that Earth's prime meridian (the north-south line marking zero degrees longitude) should pass through the Airy Transit Circle at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England.

(A transit circle is an instrument for measuring star positions, and could be used for determining local time; this one was named for its designer, British Astronomer Royal George Airy.)

Human learning is a complex, sometimes mysterious process. Most of us have had experiences where we have struggled to learn something new, but also times when we've picked something up nearly effortlessly.

What if a fusion of computer science and psychology could help us understand more about how people learn, making it possible to design ideal lessons?

That long-range goal is moving toward reality thanks to an effort led by professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison departments of computer sciences, psychology and educational psychology. Their collaborative research aims to break new ground in what computer scientist Jerry Zhu calls "machine teaching"-- a twist on the more familiar concept of machine learning.

Male doctors have nearly a 250 percent greater chance of having medico-legal action taken against them than their female counterparts.

Since the chickenpox vaccine became available in the U.S. in 1995, there has been a large reduction in chickenpox cases. Hospitalizations and outpatient visits for chickenpox have continued their decline after a second dose of the vaccine was recommended to improve protection against the disease, according to a new study.

Will the planet starve if bees disappear? Aren’t bees responsible for a significant chunk of the world’s food supply and nutrition, from one third to as much as 90 percent, depending on what advocacy group is making the claim? You hear such assertions invoked by advocacy groups, reported as truth by journalists and cited by politicians as accepted wisdom whenever the subject of pollinators comes up.

In another reversal of claims that saturated fats were killing people and their replacement, trans fats, were healthier, another study has found that saturated fats are not associated with an increased risk of death, heart disease, stroke, or type 2 diabetes. Instead, trans fats are associated with greater risk of death and coronary heart disease. This is a dramatic change and vindicates organizations like the American Council on Science and Health, which had stated decades ago that saturated fats in moderation were not harmful and that groups that scare the public to raise money were simply exaggerating flawed animal studies to worry people.

Rapid eye movements (REMs) during sleep may contribute to the visual part of our dreams by acting as a switch from image to image, researchers have found. The study, which measured the activity of individual cells in the brain in both awake and sleeping participants, is important because it is the first of its kind and provides a great starting point for uncovering the deeper secrets of human consciousness.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has effectively ended any chance of same-sex marriage in this term of parliament. Public opinion in Australia is in clear support of same-sex marriage. So how have opponents had so much success in blocking change?

Prominent arguments against same-sex marriage have been based on history, tradition, human rights, and social scientific research into health and welfare. The role of religion in opposition has been less explicit.

Religion, history and tradition

The consistency of the whole appearance rather than the attractiveness of the parts is not just  saying, it's science, according to a study where participants were shown schematic point-light displays that depict a person using 15 moving dots.

The representation conveyed both the individual characteristics of a person's movements and their individual body shape. 

The team isolated these two areas and separately measured the attractiveness of individual movement styles as well as individual body shapes based on ratings obtained from his research participants. The researchers then combined the movement style of one person with the body shapes of another person and collected attractiveness ratings from these "hybrid walkers".