Because caffeine is a mild diuretic, there is a common assumption that caffeinated beverages, such as coffee, also have this effect.

The problem is that a kernel of scientific knowledge can be misconstrued in news outlets. As we discussed on Thanksgiving, everything in a Thanksgiving dinner contains chemicals found by someone somewhere to be a carcinogen in rats and could therefore be banned if they did not occur naturally. 

The Fleckvieh is a breed of cattle that originated in the Alpine region and is now found on every continent, with an estimated worldwide population of around 40 million.

America is back at mid-1990s levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Some of that is due to the ongoing recession, of course, but a large chunk is due to the switch from the dirty coal plants that ballooned after America stopped producing emissions-free nuclear energy to natural gas.

While energy overall is back at early 1990s levels of emissions, coal specifically is back at early 1980s levels of emissions.

And it's all been done without mitigation, rationing or increased cost, even during a political climate of hostility against traditional energy. It isn't just CO2; "combined cycle" natural gas power plants also release significantly less nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, finds a study
in Earth's Future. 

If you donate money to Greenpeace and get a tax deduction, is your act less moral?

Indeed it is, at least in the perception of other people, according to a new psychology paper on the "tainted-altruism effect", which suggests that charity in conjunction with self-interested behavior is viewed less favorably because we tend to think that the person could have given everything to charity without taking a cut for themselves. 

Of course, plenty of people give to charity or commit charitable acts without thought of any benefit. Perception about altruism is in the eye of the beholder. And Greenpeace is just an example, you could think about churches or, in the case of one experiment below, a man who volunteers in order to impress a girl.

Children believe the world is far more segregated by gender than it actually is, according to a psychology paper which analyzed classroom friendships in five U.S. elementary schools.  

While the boys and girls had no problems being friends together, they had a perception that only boys played with boys and girls played with girls. The biological differences were a clear differentiating point. If so, does that mean the cause is evolutionary psychology, social psychology or sociology?

Jennifer Watling Neal and colleagues examined classroom friendships in five U.S. elementary schools. They found boys and girls had no problems being friends but had a perception that only boys played with boys and girls played with girls.

Today the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Collaboration announced that they have measured the scale of the universe to an accuracy of one percent.   

The clymene dolphin is a small and sleek marine mammal living in the Atlantic Ocean. A new study has found this dolphin is a rarity in mammals - a genetic hybrid that is closely related to spinner and striped dolphins.

The classification of the clymene dolphin has been a longstanding challenge to taxonomists, who initially considered it to be a subspecies of the spinner dolphin. Then in 1981, thorough morphological analyses established it as a recognized distinct species.

In a future where the public will be paying for health care, the patience for preventable diseases, like those related to smoking and overeating, is dwindling.

But current weight loss messages and the stereotyping in the media -  that characterize overweight individuals as lazy, weak-willed, self-indulgent and contributing to rising health care costs — may be tipping the scales in the wrong direction. Designed to encourage weight loss, they may actually have the opposite effect, according to U.C. Santa Barbara psychology professor Brenda Major.