Quoted: Many a professor dreams of revolution. But Norman T. Uphoff, working in a leafy corner of the Cornell University campus, is leading an inconspicuous one centered on solving the global food crisis. The secret, he says, is a new way of growing rice.

Originally developed by a French Jesuit priest based in Madagascar.

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Glucocorticoids are steroids produced by bodies at times of stress. Prolonged stress(and exposure to the steroids) damages hippocampus neurons. PTSD and depression(ie chronic stress) can cause permanent damage to the hippocampus, slow neurogenesis and affect memory.

From studies of baboon clans, this steroid level-
(a) is generally low in high ranking males and high in low ranking males. They are high for high-ranking males when the societal hierarchy is under threat.
(b) is high when the personal threat is unpredictable and arbitrary.
(c) is higher when a baboon is unable to distinguish a real threat from a non-threat.
(d) is lower where baboons have a social outlet for anger.
(e) is lower when they are sociable and not alone.

This is not an Onion article :-)

Quoted: Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month."

Quoted: Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

Here is the paper for you theoretical physicists out there- http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

Quoted: To get a sense of swarms, Dr. Couzin builds computer models of virtual swarms. Each model contains thousands of individual agents, which he can program to follow a few simple rules. To decide what those rules ought to be, he and his colleagues head out to jungles, deserts or oceans to observe animals in action.

Quoted: The two scientists discovered a phenomenon called giant magnetoresistance. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads.

Smaller disks mean fainter magnetic signals, so the ability to detect them is key to shrinking hard disks.

Quoted: The result is a school with no academic departments or tenure, and one that emphasizes entrepreneurship and humanities as well as technical education. Its method of instruction has more in common with a liberal arts college, where the focus is on learning how to learn, than with a standard engineering curriculum.

Quoted: the process of solving seemingly insurmountable problems is an Olin rite of passage, like the project that was given to her and her fellow students: build a robot that can climb a wall. When it worked, she said, “it was the moment of realization that I could do anything.”

Quoted: IN “Oryx and Crake,” Margaret Atwood’s novel about humanity’s final days on earth, a boy named Jimmy becomes obsessed with Alex, an African gray parrot with extraordinary cognitive and linguistic skills.

Atwood based her parrot on one that died recently. But the real Alex was no slouch...

Quoted: “Want a nut!” Alex demanded. The interview was over. “Want a nut!” he repeated. “Nnn ... uh ... tuh.” Dr. Pepperberg was flabbergasted. “Not only could you imagine him thinking, ‘Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?’ ” she said. “This was in a sense his way of saying to us, ‘I know where you’re headed! Let’s get on with it.’ ”