In The Big Bang and the Birth of Culture, we talked about the beginning of culture long before what anthropologists had previously assumed and discussed why space travel is not only becoming important for ecological reasons, it's part of a universal mandate.

Now we're going to talk about some aspects of galactic order. Infinite monkeys in a random universe? No, more like a railroad train with a lot of ways to get from point A to point B - but it has rails and the universe can never leave them.

In the aftermath of the Big Bang, particles collided and shifted with terrific force - yet protons came out of these crashes intact. This identity retention was a primitive form of memory and it was the foundation of culture.

It used to be that El Nino was a predictable phenomenon that explained odd weather changes but recent global warming studies minimized its impact - everything was global warming instead. Now, it seems, El Nino is back in atmospheric fashion.

Scientists have known about El Niño weather fluctuations over a large portion of the world since the early 1950s. They occur in cycles every three to seven years, changing rain patterns that can trigger flooding as well as drought.

Siegfried Schubert of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and his colleagues studied the impact that El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have on the most intense U.S.

Communist dictatorships don't get credit for much but one thing about them made anti-smoking advocates happy; a lack of cigarettes meant fewer people puffed. Yes, according to a new study in an anti-smoking journal, capitalism is to blame.

Contrary to health wisdom in the west, the number of Russian women who smoke has more than doubled since the collapse of the Soviet Union, say authors of a study published in the journal Tobacco Control.

In 1992, seven per cent of women smoked, compared to almost 15 per cent by 2003. In the same period, the number of men who smoke has risen from 57 per cent to 63 per cent.

Since the term "black hole" was coined by John Wheeler in 1967, they have been used to resolve a lot of science-fiction plot inconsistencies.

Sometimes they resolve real-life ones too, especially if there is no other explanation.

HE 0437-5439, is an early-type star and one of ten so-called hypervelocity stars that are speeding away from the Milky Way galaxy - because of its young age, astronomers stated it could not have come from our galaxy. Carnegie astronomers Alceste Bonanos and Mercedes López-Morales, and collaborators Ian Hunter and Robert Ryans from Queen’s University Belfast examined its velocity, light intensity and, for the first time, its elemental composition and have proposed an answer - another black hole.

Think it's laws or governments that keep people honest? Not according to a new study in Psychological Science. Two psychologists examined the psychological impact of genetic determinism, free will, and ethical behavior and found that people who felt like they were in control of their destiny acted more ethically than people who felt like they were not.

It is well established that changing people’s sense of responsibility can change their behavior. But what would happen if people came to believe that their behavior was the inevitable product of a causal chain beyond their control – a predetermined fate beyond the reach of free will?

NEW YORK, January 28 /PRNewswire/ --

- Success Fueled by Intensified Market Demand for Shunra's Award-Winning Network Emulation Solutions; 54 Percent of Fortune 100 Now Customers

Shunra, the world's leading provider of network emulation solutions, today announced strong 2007 results, reporting the fifth consecutive quarter of quarter-over-quarter revenue growth. Shunra's 2007 success was fueled by intensified market demand for its WAN emulation suite, an increase in turnkey Professional Services engagements, three major product releases and praise from prestigious industry analysts and journalists.

HOUSTON, January 28 /PRNewswire/ --

SOLIHULL, England and MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, January 28 /PRNewswire/ --

Ford Motor Company's Land Rover division and Savi today announced they have launched a pilot program that deploys an active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions that better synchronizes the delivery of auto parts from multiple suppliers to Land Rover's key assembly plant in the West Midlands (U.K.). The pilot is made possible through a U.K. central government grant administered by the University of Warwick.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080123/AQW081LOGO )

MILPITAS, California, January 28 /PRNewswire/ --

- Improved ESD Protection AND Signal Integrity for HDMI(TM) and DisplayPort(TM)

California Micro Devices (Nasdaq: CAMD) today introduced PicoGuard XS, an innovative new ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection architecture in the XtremeESD(TM) family, the industry's first product to provide both outstanding signal integrity and robust ESD protection for high speed differential signals such as DisplayPort and HDMI. By integrating inductors with the ESD protection diodes, the PicoGuard XS architecture eliminates the need for external compensation to match line impedance, reducing design complexity and cost.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080128/AQM088)

Latest Trends in ESD Protection

ST. DAVID'S, Bermuda, January 28 /PRNewswire/ --

Warner Chilcott Limited (Nasdaq: WCRX) announced today a view of anticipated full year 2008 results.

Total revenues for 2008 are expected to be in the range of US$935 to US$945 million, with the growth primarily being driven by LOESTRIN 24 FE, DORYX, FEMCON FE, and TACLONEX. Gross profit margin, as a percentage of total revenues, is anticipated to be in the range of 80% to 81% in 2008.