We created clocks and calendars to give people a common way to communicate about the future and the past and about when to have dinner.  But time is, as they say, relative.  A clock on top of a mountain moves differently than one at sea level - that's gravitational time dilation. NIST researchers have even been able to show that tall people age differently than short ones. And if you lived your life in a car traveling 20 miles per hour, you would age slower than people who just walk around. Time is not only relative in physics, it is relative in culture.  We feel like time moves faster the older we get.

We seem to not be able to “explain” certain aspects like the nature of time, and not for lack of trying. Especially: We cannot explain a single subjective feeling in ways that satisfy many – not subjective sounding of sound, not the redness of the color red, not why pain “really” hurts. In spite of all the science we threw at them, something unexplained seems left about how feeling feels. Do we simply commit another ‘regress-error’ here?

Regress Error versus Recursion

People with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) have an obsession relating to their body image, where they believe that they have a defect in their appearance.

BDD is estimated to affect one to two per cent of the population. Individuals with BDD engage with time-consuming compulsive behaviors such as mirror-checking, applying make-up to camouflage and seeking reassurance about their appearance.

Despite much research, the genetic causes why animals have such different longevities remain largely unknown, much because so many factors act on ageing that isolating the effect of a single gene is  almost  impossible.

But now, a study just published in the journal AGE might help to change that as researchers Pedro Magalhães and Yang Li from the Institute of Integrative Biology, at the UK University of Liverpool,  unveil a new method that has already help them to identify several  proteins involved in DNA-repair and in the recycling of abnormal molecules as being linked to longevity. 

Noise levels, fine particulate matter that leads to smog and traffic volumes are a big concern to  urban planners and residents now but they will be even bigger issues in the 'city of tomorrow'.

Three-dimensional tools will soon make it easier to simulate those issues: as the user virtually moves through his city, the corresponding data are displayed as green, yellow or red dots.

A new study estimates that more than 260,000 dogs and cats were sent to UK rescue shelters in 2009, the first full year of the worldwide recession.

Dogs and cats are popular pets in the UK and two of the authors of the new estimate study, Dr. Jane Murray and Professor Tim Gruffydd-Jones, having previously estimated the owned cat and dog populations at approximately 10.3 and 10.5 million respectively. 

Astronomers believe they have found the answer to the mystery of a powerful ‘superwind’ which causes the death of stars.

Stars like our own Sun end their lives with a ‘superwind’ 100 million times stronger than the solar wind, which occurs over a period of 10,000 years, and removes as much as half the mass of the star. At the end, only a dying and fading remnant of the star remain.

Not to worry. The Sun won't begin to throw out those gases for around five billion years.

100 years yesterday, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg while crossing the North Atlantic and sank, killing over 1500 passengers and crew. 

Cyberbullies don't feel like they are the same as physical bullies.  Some new research agrees, and for that reason anti-bullying campaigns need to be optimized for the Internet.

Traditional bullying, the 'schoolyard' kind of bullying, is often associated with three main characteristics: a power differential between bully and victim, proactive targeting of a victim and ongoing aggression. The Internet is the great equalizer. Traditional power differentials, like size and popularity, don't apply as commonly in cyberbullying and the lines between victim and aggressor are more blurred; it is not unusual for an individual to act in all capacities - bully, victim, and witness - online.

The Trefael Stone is an ancient monument in south-west Wales.