Are you a morning person or a night owl? Is it just a personal preference or is there something to it? It's a complex puzzle with a lot of variables to consider. Literature concerning variation of sensory function according to the circadian cycle is lacking and chronobiological studies have focused on circadian fluctuation in performing simple motor tasks, fine skilled movement, and anaerobic exercise.

To try and determine when people at their optimal, researchers observed and compared the circadian fluctuations in tactile sense, joint reposition sense and two-point discrimination in 21 healthy adult subjects, at approximately 9:00, 13:00 and 18:00 during the day.

During their annual Winter Study at Isle Royale National Park, scientists from Michigan Technological University counted nine wolves organized into one breeding pack and a second small group that is a remnant of a formerly breeding pack.

In the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Study’s annual report released today, the researchers say that over the past three years, they have tallied the lowest numbers of wolves ever: nine in 2011–12, eight in 2012–13 and nine in 2013–14. During the same period, predation rates—the proportion of the moose population killed by wolves—also dropped to the lowest ever recorded, while the number of moose doubled, to approximately 1,050 moose.

Privacy discussions of modern times have four pillars - and they are all weak, according to a new article.

There are four main arguments about privacy: (1) it is dead; (2) people don't care about privacy and modern youth care even less; people with nothing to hide have nothing to fear; and privacy is bad for business.

A paper in Zootaxa describes a new species of spider, Cebrennus rechenbergi, the only spider that is able to move by means of flic-flac jumps. 

The nocturnal spider Cebrennus rechenbergi lives in the sand desert Erg Chebbi in southeastern Morocco, not far from the Algerian border.

Smallpox as a disease is dead and has been since 1980. Should we let the virus behind it die?

Variola, the virus that causes smallpox, is on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing body of the World Health Organization, which is part of the United Nations.

The UN would like to destroy the last known remaining live strains of the virus  but an international group of scientists led by Inger Damon, from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argue that the WHA should not choose destruction, because crucial scientific questions remain unanswered and important public health goals unmet. 

Corn yields in the central United States have increased dramatically in the last few decades - but they have also become more sensitive to drought conditions.