Don't you love it when things go boom? So would some astronomers, it would seem, as a recent entry in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal reflected much of their excitement. You see, a supernova went nuclear some 1,600 centuries ago in a collection of nebulae called the Large Magellanic Cloud, but even now the after effects of the collapse was readily observed. How is that possible? Prepare for another crash lesson on physics and time at the full story.

Remember all those sci-fi movies where astronauts hibernate in cryogenic stasis during long space flights? Researchers are now looking into a way to make space hibernation a possibility - without the cryogenics though. They plan to make them breathe in swamp gas instead. Wait... Swamp gas? You'll have to read the full article to find out why.

With everything that's currently happening, the US National Academy  of Engineering was able to identify three of the greatest challenges that were challenging humanity. These were the quality of life, clean water, and computer intelligence. More information in the full article.

If you find yourself succumbing to the call and lure of the mall every time you're feeling a bit down, you just might have been hit by the loneliness bug. But never fear, because the mall just has the right therapy for you: retail therapy.

Researchers got interested enough and conducted a study to show the link between feeling bad and compulsive shopping. To know about what the researchers found out, go to our full article.

Researchers from Harvard University and Pennsylvania State University are undertaking an ambitious project to beat the heat. They have currently invented a technology which will reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by human emissions and help speed up nature's natural process of cleaning up greenhouse gases.

Read more about the proposed project after the jump!

Holger Roempler of Harvard University and the University of Leipzig, Carles Lalueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona and Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have challenged the commonly-accepted image of Neanderthals, claiming that some of the extinct hominids could have had fair skin and red hair.

Roempler, Lalueza-Fox and Hofreiter have been studying DNA samples taken from Neanderthal fossils found in Italy and Spain. During the course of their study, the researchers had found a mutation that can affect skin and hair pigmentation.

This mutation, according to Roempler et al, reduces the function of the gene known as melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is one of the key proteins regulating hair and skin color. The catch here is that a slightly different mutation in that gene causes red hair and fair skin in modern humans.

Buoyed by last year's discovery that Neanderthals also possessed the gene known to influence modern speech in humans, Roempler, Lalueza-Fox, Hofreiter and the other members of their team have been continuously working to analyze Neanderthal DNA-dubbed as "the blueprint of life" in the hopes of better understanding these ancient people.

Time for a little trivia: Scientists have been observing the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherer Tanzanian males, and they have discovered that deep-voiced males in the group had more offspring (two or more children) compared to those with higher-pitched voices. The findings, reported in Biology Letters, reinforced other observations that females are attracted to baritones.

"There are a lot of reasons why lower pitch and reproductive success could be linked," said Coren Apicella of Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Within the scope of the Hadzan society, they believe deeper voices as indications of higher testosterone levels.

In women's eyes, that meant men with bass voices were more than just manly - they could also hunt and gather better than other men and be a better provider for a family. "Or it could be that men with deeper voices simply start reproducing earlier. We really don't know what is behind this yet," added Apicella, keeping the observation generally true for the Hadzan community.

The Hadza, one of the few groups observing lifestyles of ancient humans, were favored for observation because of their lack of birth control. According to Apicella, such a people served as a "window" to the past of human kind.

We reported before hat a drug called Propranolol, which was once used to treat heart conditions, is now being used by researchers at Harvard University in Boston to see if they can disrupt or altogether delete bad memories from trauma patients. The researchers say they're getting there and making quick progress.

Think, if you may, that the mind treats memories like glass when you recall them. They turn from a liquid state in the storage area of the brain to a More solid thought which usually overwhelms patients by triggering emotions. What the drug does, essentially, is it stops the memories from "hardening" and bringing up negative feelings, leaving conscious images intact without having patients lose control.

While the research looks promising for those who want to forget tough break-ups and embarrassing moments in their lives, the medical practitioners say that this isn't a drug healthy people can use at a whim. Those with psychiatric issues will be the primary receivers of the treatment if approved by sanctioning bodies.

Legislators are now on the drug's case and are pondering limitations and sanctions which will help regulate the use of the procedure which involves recalling the particular bad memory and getting an injection to shoot it down. Fears that the substance can be abused are also causing concerns in other sectors.

Parliaments are already making some headway into having the drug and all others which belong in the memory-blocking category restricted by pharmaceuticals through licensing to ensure the public's safety against misuse. Britain's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology supported the initiative by publishing a report warning against the negative potential of the drug.

However, medical practitioners say that the regulators who have the teeth to enforce restrictions have been disappointingly quiet about the issue so far. "There is a need for someone to consider how to regulate these things," says Dr. Peter Border.

Initial findings in a study conducted by Harvard university researchers have shown that Marijuana compound tetra hydrocannabinol may be useful in fighting lung cancer in humans.

That doesn't mean you can smoke weed like mad in an insane effort to save your lungs. Smoking pot is still very dangerous and therefore must not be mistaken as a healthy habit. However, the study does prove that some of its components can be applied in treating cancer patients.

Scientists monitoring the effect of the compound on tumors have shown that it actually impedes growth by half. That means lesions will be more easily manageable. Also, cases of malignant cancer have been observed and THC seems to be helping stop the spread of the dreaded disease in the body.

"I find it fascinating, wondering if the reasons we're not seeing this spike is that THC inhibits lung cancer cells," says Dr. Len Horowitz of the Lenox Hill hospital in  New York. "It would be very ironic, although you certainly wouldn't tell somebody who smoked cigarettes to add marijuana," she adds.

On a side note, the research teams also reported some other new treatments possible for cancer patients. They're also experimenting with virus genes that attack cancer cells while ignoring healthy ones altogether. Both the marijuana and virus treatment concepts are still in early experimental stages but the findings have showed promise so far.

American and European studies have shown that people with the inclination to believe in the supernatural, such as reincarnation and alien abductions, are more likely to have memory problems than their non-believing counterparts.

Scientists say that the reason behind this may very well be the dilution of memories as those who believe in past lives are more often endowed with the ability to create "false memories" because they have above-average imagery skills. When they get caught up with the fantasies, they have trouble stopping themselves from convincing their own psyche that things aren't always deja vu.

Separate studies in the Haamstricht University in The Netherlands and Harvard University proved the theory by testing respondents in two phases designed to simulate how they would perform normally in everyday activities that require short-term memory.

First, the respondent would be treated with hypnosis, then made to read a list of 20 names which was divided into two subsets. First was a list of popular people's names while the other half was a list of non-popular people's names. After reading the names, the respondents were asked to read the same list again, which was shuffled randomly along with ten new non-popular names.

The task for the respondents was now to classify the names into three - the popular names, the non-popular names they already read and the non-popular names which were added late. The results revealed that the group that had beliefs in reincarnation was twice as likely to make mistakes.

"We suspect that this might be kind of a psychological buffering mechanism against the fear of death," says Richard McNally of Harvard. McNally, a clinical psychologist, also said that the people who have this type of belief sets were also more likely to be depressed and suffer from insomnia. That compounds the problem as sleep loss has been considered a factor in memory loss.