It seems that the more macho a man is — at least according to his hormones — the more the sight of an attractive woman will affect his judgement.

Researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium asked men to play an ultimatum game, in which they split a certain amount of money between them. High-testosterone men drove the hardest bargain — unless they had previously viewed pictures of bikini-clad models, in which case they were more likely to accept a poorer deal.

Lingerie makes hagglers happy-go-lucky | Nature

Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”

Prominent US Physicists Send Letter to President Bush

More than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal agencies still have not standardized processes to share terrorist-related as well as sensitive, but unclassified, information, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report released yesterday

GAO: Feds need governmentwide policies on info sharing - Computerworld

Juan Gilbert is developing a video game with his students at Auburn University that is designed to teach algebra through hip-hop music.

He says, "it's a national necessity - for our security and for our economy."

According to the National Science Foundation, in 1999, one-third of all people holding science and engineering doctorates in the United States were born in another country. Among PhD-holding computer scientists, half were born abroad; for engineers, more than half; and within the federal government, one-sixth.

Pushing a higher degree of success

Two of Tina Dico's first gigs were talent contests: she won both, and by age 23 had founded her own record label. She has had the No. 1 album in her native Denmark, beating out artists such as Coldplay and U2, and she has done it without the help of a major label.

Dico fronted the band Europe by Transit and also sang for Zero 7 before releasing her first full-length solo disc, In the Red, this past January. She will also sing on Zero 7's next release, Garden.

Her work with Zero 7 might lead some to slot Dico in the electronica category, but she says that's not quite what she's doing.

"I grew up with Bob Dylan and those kinds of things, so I suppose I am more of a slightly more traditional singer-songwriter kind of girl," Dico says.

Tina Dico, Winning Talent from Denmark

From the RFID tags now embedded in everything from soda cans to the family pet, to smart buildings that subtly adapt to the changing flow of visitors, to gestural interfaces like the ones seen in Minority Report, computing no longer looks much like it used to. Increasingly invisible but present everywhere in our lives, it has moved off the desktop and out into everyday life–affecting almost every one of us, whether we're entirely aware of it or not.

Author Adam Greenfield calls this ubiquitous computing "everyware." In a uniquely engaging approach to this complex topic, Greenfield explains how such "information processing dissolving in behavior" is reshaping our lives; brief, aphoristic chapters explore the technologies, practices, and innovations that make everyware so powerful and seem so inevitable.

If you've ever sensed both the promise of the next computing, and the challenges it represents for all of us, this is the book for you. "Everyware" aims to gives its reader the tools to understand the next computing, and make the kind of wise decisions that will shape its emergence in ways that support the best that is in us.

Everyware : The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, by Adam Greenfield

The whole idea of tracking your family in this manner is weird and alarming on some levels. So is the notion that we're all so deathly afraid for our kids that there's even a market for this.

But now that the technology is out there, it's not going away anytime soon.

Watch Out, Kids: With GPS Phones, Big Mother Is Watching

Yuki Noguchi: Hello, all. Thanks for joining us today. With me is Evan Kohlmann, an expert in counterterrorism as well as technology. The Internet has become a vital networking and communications tool for the world over, including for terrorist networks. Security and privacy are also major concerns for all users of the Internet. Kohlmann knows a great deal more than I about operations of terrorist networks online, and I am grateful that he is here to field some of your questions.

Tracking Terrorists Online

The top Republican and the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee have disagreed publicly about many things, but on one issue they have recently come together. Both are disquieted by the first-year performance of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

In New Job, Spymaster Draws Bipartisan Criticism

The Holman family gets together practically every weeknight and most weekends these days, even though Jean is in Dupont Circle, her father and sister Susan are in Pennsylvania, and her uncle and cousin are in Texas.

Together, they're also in Tyria, the virtual world of a fantasy computer game called Guild Wars, where they form the "Jelo" team, fighting the undead and other groups of players as a family unit. Along the way, they also might plan vacations or share family gossip.

Although computer games have often been thought of as a pastime for the antisocial, communal online worlds such as the one in Guild Wars are the hottest things in games these days.

Far-Flung Families Unite in Cyberspace -- And Kill Monsters