The snapshot on the right is a plaster mold of Abraham Lincoln's face currently on display at the Chicago History Museum. This, together with another mask, is currently being used by scientist to verify the claim that the 16th President of America had a facial defect called cranial facial microsomia.

Prior to all these, historians have long noted before that Lincoln's political rivals have always mocked his face. Even Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum commented that the president's face was primitive, immature, and unfinished. Head of the above mentioned study Dr. Ronald Fishman added:

Lincoln's contemporaries noted his left eye at times drifted upward independently of his right eye, a condition now termed strabismus. Lincoln's smaller left eye socket may have displaced a muscle controlling vertical movement. Lincoln noticed double vision only occasionally and it did not bother him a great deal.

Fishman also said that Lincoln was actually kicked to the face by a horse when he was a boy. This very incident is puzzling their team because they can not ascertain if the face defect was caused by the horse or was a developmental one.

Aside from its well-documented mythology, another thing mysterious and appealing about ancient Egypt is its gold. Just recently, archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute have unearthed an ancient gold-processing and panning camp along the Nile River, revealing where the once-mighty kingdom obtained its resources.

The said camp is located about 800 miles south of Cairo, somewhere in the north region of Sudan. Archaeologists believe that this camp was utilized by Kushites who formerly ruled Sudan. Expedition co-leader Geoff Emberling explained,

Based on what we've found, the kingdom of Kush was significantly larger and more powerful than anyone thought. The process probably went like this: "We send you the trinkets, you send us the bags of gold and we give you more status". The kingdom of Kush and the Egyptians were close trading buddies.

Emberling added that the camp site simply looks like a field of rocks to the untrained eye. However, he shared that their team was able to locate a total of 55 two-foot grindstones used to crush gold ore. Water from the Nile may have been used to sift out the bounty.

However, the team of Emberling doesn't have enough time left to figure out the whole story behind the camp due to time restraints. A dam is currently being built upstream of the excavation site and around 2,500 untouched sites will be affected by it once finished. Emberling is saddened that a big slice of history will be lost despite the work they are doing.

Parkinson's disease is one of the most feared debilitating disease currently known, and people over 40 are more at risk than their younger counterparts to develop it.

In a nutshell, the disease is caused by a severe lack of a neural substance called dopamine that allows people to move and have control of it. As people get older, calcium tends to eat up a lot of the dopamine, causing people's neurons to die off, leading to involuntary bodily tremors and afterwards, the inability to walk.

Drug and therapy measures have been employed to ease the burden of thousands upon thousands of patients diagnosed with the disease annually. New hope, however, springs from an unexpected source and it's been showing a lot of promise early on.

The drug is called Isradipine and it was originally designed to lower blood pressure. Incidentally, it's also a calcium-blocker that either slows down or outright stops Parkinson's disease dead in its tracks. By blocking calcium, the afflicted neurons of Parkinson's patients are rejuvenated and go back to their original healthy states.

Professor James Surmeier who led the study leading to the discovery in Chicago's Northwestern University said "our hope is that this drug will protect dopamine neurons, so that if you begin taking it early enough, you won't get Parkinson's disease, even if you were at risk."

Organizations funding researches on possible treatments for Parkinson's aren't jumping the gun, though. hey said that they're impressed and continuously monitoring the progress of the study to see if it can hold up to its bidding.

According to the latest study conducted by three U.S. universities, telling girls that boys are better than them at mathematics irritate them so much and has the potential to negatively affect the girls' performance in the said subject and other areas. The study isn't all about quirks and whatnot as it also focuses on the idea of stereotyping.

University of Chicago Assistant Professor in Psychology Sian Beilock commented that this makes women worry so much (because they want to prove themselves). That worrying uses up important short term or working memory which could otherwise be used performing the task at hand. Beilock continued,

They get so concerned with the stereotype that this spills over into other tests. Our work suggests that if a girl has a mathematics class first thing in the morning and experiences math-related worries in this class, these worries may carry implications for her performance in the class she attends next.

For the study, the women were separated into two groups. The first set was told that they were being tested to see why men generally do better on math. The other group was simply told that they are part of an experiment on Math performance. Women belonging to the first set had an accuracy reduction from nearly 90 percent in a pretest to about 80 percent.

The study was actually based on five previous studies involving about 200 college women who did well in mathematics. Beilock's colleagues involve other experts from the University of Miami and University of California.

Never mind the fact that you only stand 5'2, you're overweight and your only "friends" are from online games. You can still get a hot date or two if you subscribe to online dating circuits. Oh, by the way, you have to be the type who earns US$ 244,000 a year.

A study at the University of Chicago reveals that some primal instincts never change when it comes to choosing a mate. For one, men are less daunted by age and race when searching for dates. They entertain more prospects and ask out more people. They are also less sensitive about education and background. One word explains that- testosterone.

On the other hand, the less hormone-driven female species are more selective. The study shows that ladies are more likely to want to get to know their prospective dates before they actually go out with them. They are more particular about educational attainment and profession.Women are also more likely to date only men of the same color and they prefer taller men most of the time.

However, that could change depending on the kind of paycheck that a man has. The raging beauty may opt for a less aesthetically-endowed man who has a hefty bank account. Does this defy Darwin's laws of natural selection? Let's see.

In this day and age, a good physique is still attractive. In the old times, men were judged according to how much they can provide for the woman and her children. The same is true with animals. Males are sometimes forced to fight it out to the death so that only the strong survive. Strong ones are better hunters, and therefore better providers. Come to think of it, the more money you earn, the more you can provide even if you don't have the biceps and washboard abs. Same principle, different times.

Some things will remain based on instinct while some have evolved through time. Sometimes, the mate you thought you want doesn't work for you in the end.

Scientists know for a fact that in the last stages of a star's life, most of them turn into extremely hot and very dense versions of themselves. When the star draws its last breath, it explodes in a cataclysmic blaze of glory and shoots matter into the vastness of space. Of course, that's all theory and nobody's ever seen such a sight come to pass.

Now, scientists at the University of Chicago claim that they've actually witnessed such an event. The whole, thing, however all happened in a computer simulation.

Don't let that fool you. The simulation isn't some scenario that astronomers dreamed up, sent to Pixar, and got a DVD in return. They put all available knowledge into one big program and saw just what the computer thinks happens to a white dwarf in the course of the explosion.

To do this, astronomers invested 58,000 hours of study and work and gave all the knowledge a run at 700 computer processors to do the intense math of the most accurate simulation possible. The results were astounding.

Scientists watched in amazement as they saw what triggers the explosions in these small stars and how everything comes to a conclusion. What happens is actually similar to a diesel engine combustion process where a spark triggers combustion in the chamber and lets off mechanical energy.

In stars, the computer revealed that near the center of the star's core, a jet of white-hot hydrogen 10 miles in diameter rushes upward and shoots to the surface. That provides the spark in which catastrophe follows soon after. Astronomers now believe that the matter spewed after the big blast may be the source of iron in the universe.

Watching the documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" made me squirm - not because it's fugly, but because of the thought that those documentary scenes could happen to our Earth if we don't take appropriate actions.

So what's with the global warming talk? If you live in the Midwest and East parts of North America, then you'd know that these places are experiencing an unusually warm winter.

MSNBC reports that temperatures are running 10 and 10 degrees higher than normal in those places. Ice fishing tournaments in Minnesota were cancelled for lack of ice and golfers at Chicago are having a grand time at the fairways.

Nothing wrong with that, but heck, it's still January. In fact, New York City experienced a November and December without snow for just the second time. The first time that happened was way back in 1877.

Meteorologists have given explanations as to the possible reasons of the weird weather. They said that this due to the combination of El Nino and jet stream. El Nino can lead to milder weather especially now that it is under way in the Pacific Ocean; while jet stream, which is a high-altitude air-current responsible for holding back warm Southern air, is going farther north than usual over the East Coast.

This is also affecting winter-related businesses. Ski resorts are praying for cold weather to arrive soon and firewood businesses are struggling to make ends meet. As for the global warming clause, meteorologists also said that this weather change isn't caused by global warming since weather is somewhat prone to short-term fluctuations. That's the silver lining in this scenario...for now.

If you're feeling bluer than blue, if you feel that every day is a black Sunday, if you feel that the world is out to get you, if you're just waiting for the earth to open up and swallow you whole, then you're most probably depressed. To alleviate that feeling, you just might want to get prescription drugs, or more particularly, antidepressants.

Here's the catch, though. Use of these drugs, like Celxa, Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft, increase the risk of suicide attempts. But, the bright side to it is that they actually lessen patients' risk of dying by suicide. Yup, what it does increase is attempted suicide, and not the completed kind.

How about a ray of sunshine and a sprinkle of fairy dusts to complete the scene, eh?

This is what Finnish researchers found out in their study regarding the actual correlation of the use of antidepressants of risk for suicide. Apparently, the risk, while still there, does not necessarily equate to actual damage. Just a couple of slashed wrists or OD'd patient, but no wake to go to, at least.

But although this article chose to take the lighthearted path, this is, in truth, a highly serious matter. Depression, after all, is no small joke. The Finnish researchers from the University of Kuopio found that 15,000 people have been hospitalized in Finland for suicide attempts spanning the years 1997 to 2003.

Following up on these people for an average of 3.4 years to see if they tried suicide again, failed or not, they found out that among 7,466 men and 7,924 women in the study, 602 suicides were committed. There were 7,136 who attempted, and 1,583 deaths from other causes during the follow-up period.

Apparently, the kind of antidepressant a person takes has an effect on the kind of suicide the person would most likely go for. For example, those taking Prozac had a 48% lower risk of suicide compared with those not under medication. Meanwhile, those taking Effexor had a 61% increased risk.

According to Robert D. Gibbons, director of the Center for Health Statistics and a professor of biostatistics and psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago, the people undertaking antidepressant medications are apparently depressed. Hence, although they may be taking medications, they remain to be at a higher risk of attempting suicide.

However, for those who have been depressed and killed themselves, they most probably did not seek treatment. "This is the big concern about 'black box' warnings...They increase the rate of untreated depression and can ultimately increase the rate of completed suicide."