The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010 was awarded to Robert G. Edwards "for the development of in vitro fertilization".

Their reasoning seemed to be partly cultural - that Edwards battled societal and establishment resistance to his development of the in vitro fertilization procedure, which has so far led to the birth of around 4 million people.

Edwards, now 85 and professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, began working on IVF in the 1950s and developed the technique with British gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988 - posthumous prizes are not allowed.  In IVF, egg cells are removed from the mother and fertilized outside her body and then implanted into the womb.

The fake orgasm scene in "When Harry Met Sally" is likely the only good thing about that movie, and that's because it resonated with nearly everyone.    To men, it seemed real, and women knew they could do a better job - and likely had.  Recently, according to new data.

An Indiana University survey on sexual behavior covering a startling range (ages 14 to 94 - not sure which is creepier) said 85% of men believed their partners climaxed during the most recent sex act but only 64% of women affirmed that.

A group of researchers say receding glaciers due to global warming at the end of the last ice age, 20,000-100,000 years ago, resulted in the rampant biodiversity left behind in their wake.

Certainly it is true there is much less biodiversity at the poles, though likely there are limits in how hot we want the planet to be.

Investigating fossil clams and snails Steffen Kiel and Sven Nielsen at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) say retreating glaciers created a mosaic landscape of countless islands, bays and fiords in which new species developed rapidly, geologically speaking. 

What's more universal in culture than a "thumbs up"?

To our brains, whether we seem to have a cultural familiarity or not, it isn't familiar at all, says new research in Human Brain Mapping.

People seem to react quickly and intuitively to body language, tone of voice and gaze but gestures are different, at least when the gesturer offers no other cues.    Less surprisingly, the new study also found that same-race interaction leads to greater activity in the mirror neuron system, a region of the brain linked to subconscious imitation.

It's election season and the biggest schism in American culture come November voting won't be abortion or global warming, it will be the size and role of the U.S. government in the last two years.

But increased government involvement is not new in American cultural debates - nor is it even new in science.   

Scientists have altered cardiac muscle cells to make them controllable with light and showed an ability to cause conditions such as arrhythmia in genetically modified mice, which opens up new possibilities for researching the development and therefore treatment of arrhythmias. 

Tobias Brügmann and his colleagues from the University of Bonn’s Institute of Physiology I used a “channelrhodopsin” for their experiments - a type of light sensor. At the same time, it can act as an ion channel in the cell membrane because when stimulated with blue light, this channel opens, and positive ions flow into the cell. This causes a change in the cell membrane’s pressure, which stimulates cardiac muscle cells to contract.