https://www.scmp.com/rss/296948/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Shannen Doherty is sharing more bad news about her eight-year cancer battle: the disease has now spread to her bones. Despite the bleak development, the Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed star said she still has a lot more living to do. “I don’t want to die,” the People cover star said in this week’s issue, telling the magazine that she’s hoping to inspire others by focusing on her future. “I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/people/celebrities/article/3243359/not-done-living-shannen-doherty-her-cancer-spread-beverly-hills-90210-and-heathers-star-revealed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/people/celebrities/article/3243359/not-done-living-shannen-doherty-her-cancer-spread-beverly-hills-90210-and-heathers-star-revealed?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Nov 2023 21:00:17 +0000 Tina Knowles won’t let anyone break Beyoncé’s soul. On Tuesday, she fiercely came to her daughter’s defence after critics accused the artist of lightening her skin. Knowles shared clips of the “Break My Soul” and “Alien Superstar” singer on Instagram – starting with an image that featured Bey sporting platinum-blonde hair and decked out in a chrome Versace gown for the theatrical premiere of her Renaissance film last weekend in Los Angeles. She accompanied her video with some of the claims that... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/people/celebrities/article/3243352/mum-rescue-tina-knowles-hits-back-beyonce-haters-over-recent-allegations-she-lightened-her-skin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/people/celebrities/article/3243352/mum-rescue-tina-knowles-hits-back-beyonce-haters-over-recent-allegations-she-lightened-her-skin?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:00:16 +0000 Is Bad Bunny’s steamy new single an ode to his girlfriend and certified horse girl Kendall Jenner? A number of fans certainly think so. The reggaeton sensation just released his latest song “Un Preview” and internet sleuths have wasted no time unpacking the sexy, love-struck lyrics on social media. Naturally, the leading theory is that Bad Bunny penned the romantic tune for his current partner, Jenner, who has been linked to the Un Verano Sin Ti artist since February. “Baby, I’m not scared /... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/entertainment/article/3236644/bad-bunnys-new-song-un-preview-all-about-kendall-jenner-puerto-rican-star-raps-about-controversial?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/entertainment/article/3236644/bad-bunnys-new-song-un-preview-all-about-kendall-jenner-puerto-rican-star-raps-about-controversial?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Oct 2023 22:00:12 +0000 As battlegrounds go, the leafy campus of India’s premier film school must count among the more graceful, with its rows of tidy bungalows gently shaded by neem and tamarind trees.  Yet there is no mistaking the foment at the Film and Television Institute of India. Hand-painted slogans snake across building walls, quoting Albert Camus and Martin Luther King. Outside the cafeteria, students smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, talking of fascism and free speech.  For nearly three months, the roughly 400... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1855217/students-indias-film-and-television-institute-strike?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1855217/students-indias-film-and-television-institute-strike?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Sep 2015 06:00:27 +0000 The six fraternal cinephiles known as The Wolfpack entered the Beacon Theatre in New York earlier this year for a reunion screening of Goodfellas. The film was one of the young men's favourites, and they were excited to watch it on the big screen with some of the cast members present. "We've seen it hundreds of times, maybe more," says Bhagavan Angulo, 23, the oldest brother, a low-key personality. "It's like sometimes, OK, our mum is making a big Italian dinner? Let's do Goodfellas," says... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/film-tv/article/1853378/documentary-sensation-wolfpack-opens-hong-kong-sundance-festival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/film-tv/article/1853378/documentary-sensation-wolfpack-opens-hong-kong-sundance-festival?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Aug 2015 10:01:03 +0000 He's been described as the "Buddhist bin Laden", but Ashin Wirathu thinks he has more in common with the world's most famous fictional spy. "James Bond is a nationalist," the monk said in a recent interview. Flashing a smile, he offered a vague recollection of a movie in which 007, to extract information from a woman, took her to bed. "While he did not take much pleasure in the act," Wirathu said, "he did it for his country." His questionable reading of Bond aside, the firebrand Wirathu firmly... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1813240/ashin-wirathu-monk-they-call-buddhist-bin-laden?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1813240/ashin-wirathu-monk-they-call-buddhist-bin-laden?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 May 2015 22:37:39 +0000 In the depths of winter, high in the mountains of South Africa’s Eastern Cape, teenage boys clad only in blankets, with white clay painted on their faces, undergo agonising traditional circumcisions. Hundreds have died as a result of the ritual, and hundreds more have lost their penises due to infection, according to the South African Health Ministry. For years, Dr Andre van der Merwe, head of urology at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape, has listened to the heartbreaking stories of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-beauty/article/1772708/penis-transplant-offers-hope-victims-botched-circumcisions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-beauty/article/1772708/penis-transplant-offers-hope-victims-botched-circumcisions?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Apr 2015 05:30:00 +0000 A Japanese company will tomorrow attempt to break a 589km/h speed record set last week by its new magnetic levitation train. Central Japan Railway, often called JR Central, said last week's record-breaking test run involved a seven-car "maglev" train on a 43km track in Japan's Yamanashi prefecture. Magnetic levitation, or "mag-lev", train systems use magnets to lift and propel the train, promising a ride that's smoother, quieter and nearly twice as fast as traditional high-speed rail. JR Central... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1771628/japanese-maglev-train-attempt-589kmh-speed-record?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1771628/japanese-maglev-train-attempt-589kmh-speed-record?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Apr 2015 16:30:45 +0000 Experimental subjects who were tricked into thinking they should smell something reported they smelled less pleasant odours when they viewed pictures of overweight and obese people than when they looked at trim people individuals, new research has found. The experimental exercise, conducted by psychology professors at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a clever way to smoke out "implicit association" - or prejudice that lies beneath the level of conscious awareness. While similar... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1744802/new-study-finds-subjects-imagined-unpleasant-smells-when-shown-photos?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1744802/new-study-finds-subjects-imagined-unpleasant-smells-when-shown-photos?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Mar 2015 00:34:48 +0000 They found the black man's body hanging by a bedsheet from a locust tree. Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas called in everybody he could think of. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. The FBI. By late Friday, a day after the disturbing discovery, they had identified the man as Otis Byrd, a 54-year-old riverboat worker who had been missing for more than two weeks. What they didn't have was the answer to the question: Was it a lynching? At a time when violence against African-Americans -... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1744812/discovery-hanged-black-man-mississippi-raises-questions-about-possible?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1744812/discovery-hanged-black-man-mississippi-raises-questions-about-possible?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:45:15 +0000 Zhang Xiaoyan made it clear that she had one objective for travelling to the US from China - to give birth so her child would automatically be an American citizen. Rest assured, a representative of You Win USA, a company advertising "maternity tourism" services, told Zhang. For fees starting at US$38,000, she would soon be in the US on a tourist visa to await the birth of her child at a luxury apartment complex in Irvine, California. The company instructed Zhang and her cousin to book tickets to... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1729538/how-us-maternity-tourism-operators-lure-chinese-mums?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1729538/how-us-maternity-tourism-operators-lure-chinese-mums?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Mar 2015 14:15:30 +0000 Hours after fleeing house arrest, Yemen's deposed president denounced a "coup" against his authority and issued a direct challenge to the faction now in control of the capital. The statement from President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi injected fresh uncertainty into efforts to prevent Yemen from breaking up or sliding into civil conflict. It was the latest twist of events in the ongoing crisis enveloping the strategically situated Arab nation of 24 million. Hours before Hadi's evening statement on... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1721318/yemens-deposed-hadi-brands-coup-illegitimate-after-fleeing-house-arrest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1721318/yemens-deposed-hadi-brands-coup-illegitimate-after-fleeing-house-arrest?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Feb 2015 17:15:45 +0000 From the beginning, Marion "Suge" Knight's life as a rap impresario was closely intertwined with the gangster ways extolled by his artists in their music. His first notable brush with the law came in 1993, when as a leader of Death Row Records he was charged with using a gun to attack two aspiring rappers. Over the next 20 years, he spent stints in jail and was injured several times by gunfire, making tabloid headlines while his career diminished. He now faces the most serious charges of his... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1697435/rap-mogul-suge-knights-latest-brush-law-his-most-serious-he-faces-murder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1697435/rap-mogul-suge-knights-latest-brush-law-his-most-serious-he-faces-murder?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Jan 2015 23:27:15 +0000 Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said that she was "seriously interested" in running for the White House in 2016. "You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested," Palin said in an interview with The Washington Post when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, said she stood by comments she made on Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1691670/sarah-palin-seriously-interested-2016-white-house-bid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1691670/sarah-palin-seriously-interested-2016-white-house-bid?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Jan 2015 23:41:40 +0000 The anointment of the House of Saud more than three centuries ago came with a pledge to rule in tandem with the austere clerics of Wahhabi Islam whose puritanical theology has provided some of the underpinnings for the extremist groups throughout the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, that partnership has left the royal family - often free-wheeling and free-spending in its own habits - presiding over a deeply conservative society with one of the worst human rights records on earth. Public beheadings... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1691671/house-sauds-partnership-wahhabi-clerics-behind-rights-abuses?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1691671/house-sauds-partnership-wahhabi-clerics-behind-rights-abuses?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Jan 2015 23:41:40 +0000 Clint Eastwood's Iraq war drama American Sniper has stunned Hollywood by setting a new record at the American box office, overcoming low expectations and a wave of controversy over the film's supposed glorification of war. The R-rated film, based on the story of Navy Seal Chris Kyle, took in US$105.3 million to set a new record for a January weekend, easily surpassing Avatar. The unexpected success for a movie that one analyst dubbed "the most underestimated film of all time" comes after it... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1683334/eastwoods-sniper-film-finds-its-mark-despite-flak-over-its-message?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1683334/eastwoods-sniper-film-finds-its-mark-despite-flak-over-its-message?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 Jan 2015 22:30:00 +0000 Taylor Negron 1957-2015 He was the surly pizza man who interrupted a class at Ridgemont High to deliver a double cheese and sausage to the cool student played by Sean Penn. He was the Olsen twins' prissy, Spanish-accented nanny Manuelo in So Little Time. He was the nutty hairdresser on Seinfeld who suggested drenching Elaine's hair with tomato sauce. He was a sadistic, would-be assassin chewed up by a churning helicopter rotor in The Last Boy Scout (1991) . A comedian and an actor, Taylor... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1679362/taylor-negron-comedian-who-played-pizza-man-ridgemont-high-dies-57?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1679362/taylor-negron-comedian-who-played-pizza-man-ridgemont-high-dies-57?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:41:19 +0000 If you were hoping to find a little more time for yourself or your loved ones in the new year, you are in luck: 2015 is going to be exactly one second longer than 2014 was. The "leap second" was decreed last week by astronomers at the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Paris who measure earth's rotation and compare it to the time kept by atomic clocks. It's the 26th time this has happened since atomic clocks started governing our time. "It's not like the leap day,... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1678437/need-more-time-2015-will-give-you-extra-second-yours?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1678437/need-more-time-2015-will-give-you-extra-second-yours?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:24:36 +0000 A new video shows a British photojournalist held captive by Islamic State giving a stylised media tour of the beleaguered northern Iraqi city of Mosul, visiting a market, a hospital and even climbing onto a police motorcycle to dispute reports the city's infrastructure has been crippled. The video, released on Saturday, provides a window on a city that has largely been off-limits to journalists since Islamic State seized control in June, although reports have trickled out from residents and... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1674054/islamic-state-uses-british-hostage-john-cantlieto-over-video-tour-mosul?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1674054/islamic-state-uses-british-hostage-john-cantlieto-over-video-tour-mosul?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jan 2015 21:30:15 +0000 Larry Wilkins was watching the evening news when he heard a knock on his door. Standing on his porch was a thin, black-haired girl, whimpering and trembling. It was seven-year-old Sailor Gutzler, who said through her tears that she had just been in an airplane crash. Stunned, Wilkins, 71, took the child in, put her on his couch and called 911, the emergency number in the United States. His two dachshunds, Pete and Bonnie, comforted her until police and an ambulance arrived 10 minutes later, he... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1673624/heartbreaking-tale-girl-7-who-survived-plane-crash-killed-parents-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1673624/heartbreaking-tale-girl-7-who-survived-plane-crash-killed-parents-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jan 2015 03:08:31 +0000 Looking for ways to reduce your risk of cancer? Try losing weight. A new study estimates that 3.6 per cent of cancers diagnosed around the world in 2012 could be traced to the excess weight of patients. That works out to 481,000 cases of cancer in adults who were at least 30 years old, according to the report by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lancet Oncology. About 23 per cent of these cancers were diagnosed in North America, where the proportion of cancers that... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1649398/richest-countries-worst-hit-obesity-fuelled-cancer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1649398/richest-countries-worst-hit-obesity-fuelled-cancer?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Nov 2014 19:52:08 +0000 How do you tell if a group of bankers is dishonest? Simply by getting them all to toss a coin. That may not seem like in-depth research, but it is the basis of an academic paper published in Nature magazine this week, which investigates whether the financial sector's culture encourages dishonesty - and concludes that it does. The academics from the University of Zurich and the University of Chicago used a sample of 128 employees of an unnamed large bank, and split them into two groups. The first... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1644696/heads-again-bankers-caught-cheating-coin-toss-study?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1644696/heads-again-bankers-caught-cheating-coin-toss-study?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Nov 2014 13:45:30 +0000 Researchers have found more proof that thinking hard pays handsomely in protecting brain power as you age. In a large group of 70-year-old Scots, people who worked intellectually demanding jobs were smarter, and had better memories than those whose jobs were less cognitively demanding. That finding held up even after researchers accounted for early differences in intelligence, education and childhood circumstances. Among men and women whose job description entailed the regular manipulation of... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1644697/research-shows-thinking-hard-pays-later-years?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1644697/research-shows-thinking-hard-pays-later-years?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Nov 2014 13:45:30 +0000 Could the humble brine shrimp, a few millimetres in length, be partly responsible for the large-scale motion of the ocean? That's the finding by a pair of California Institute of Technology researchers, who used lasers to herd brine shrimp around a tank and track their effect on the water's movement. The results, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, show that ocean currents may be a function not only of large-scale physical phenomena like wind and tides, but also of living things. Study... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1609585/tiny-brine-shrimp-may-help-power-ocean-currents-us-study-shows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1609585/tiny-brine-shrimp-may-help-power-ocean-currents-us-study-shows?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Oct 2014 19:50:49 +0000 The arrival of fast and relatively inexpensive genome sequencing is likely to open whole new avenues for diagnosing and treating diseases. But in a new study, scientists show that it can also reveal how some age-related diseases - from diabetes to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and dementia - establish a foothold in the human body, and in doing so, point the way to preventing such diseases. The latest research zeroes in on mitochrodrial DNA - the much smaller but more... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1552849/genome-sequencing-offers-glimpse-tipping-point-age-related?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1552849/genome-sequencing-offers-glimpse-tipping-point-age-related?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:10:33 +0000 As gross as it sounds, samples of the world's oldest known human faeces are offering scientists new insight into the gastronomic behaviour of our extinct, meat-loving cousins, the Neanderthals. In a study published in the journal PLOS One, researchers say an analysis of 50,000-year-old coprolites discovered in Spain suggests Neanderthals supplemented their carnivorous diet with a "significant" amount of vegetation. The study is the latest to argue against the long-held view that Neanderthals ate... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1542527/neanderthals-ate-plants-not-just-meat-study-oldest-human-faeces?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1542527/neanderthals-ate-plants-not-just-meat-study-oldest-human-faeces?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jun 2014 17:47:55 +0000 Children are remarkable judges of the people around them, with studies having shown them to be able to tell when someone is lying. Now researchers have found they pick up on more subtle aspects of misinformation such as when someone is telling only part of the truth. In a paper published by the journal Cognition, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that children can tell when someone is not giving them the whole story, and they learn not to trust the information... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1532593/your-six-year-old-knows-when-youre-being-economical-truth-study?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1532593/your-six-year-old-knows-when-youre-being-economical-truth-study?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:45:00 +0000 When Ma Wenfeng was a boy, his father earned so little money growing wheat and corn that the family mainly ate mantou, a steamed bread that is a staple of the poor. The last thing he would have dreamed of was becoming a farmer. Now it is his greatest ambition to start a farm - but not in China, a country where the very word for "farmer", nongmin, is synonymous with "peasant". Many Chinese farmers are long past retirement age but are still tilling tiny, inefficient plots of land. Motivated by the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1464264/china-invests-farms-overseas-development-and-pollution-threaten-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1464264/china-invests-farms-overseas-development-and-pollution-threaten-its?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:00:15 +0000 When Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow walked the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown in one of his natty suits, bright pocket square ablaze, he exuded power. Almost from the moment he arrived from Hong Kong in 1976 at the age of 16, he was a force in the local underworld, working as an enforcer for a local fraternal club called the Hop Sing Tong, shaking down gambling dens and running prostitution rings, according to authorities and his own accounts. He once told prosecutors he was in charge of all... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1463259/reformed-gangster-raymond-shrimp-boy-chow-caught-fbis-net?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1463259/reformed-gangster-raymond-shrimp-boy-chow-caught-fbis-net?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:41:10 +0000 Many Japanese consider eating whale meat a part of their culture, no different from eating beef or pork. In some corners of the island nation, there was shock over an international court verdict on Monday that Japan must halt its whaling programme because the hunting of 1,000 whales a year cannot be justified for scientific research purposes. The ruling marks the biggest boost to efforts to protect whales since a 1986 global moratorium on commercial harvests. Whale meat gourmands were... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1462640/will-international-court-ruling-put-end-japans-whaling?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1462640/will-international-court-ruling-put-end-japans-whaling?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:15:00 +0000 The late Frank Zappa is back for an encore, this time as a formerly pimple-causing bacterium that has apparently moved from human skin to the bark of grape vines. Italian researchers named the new bacterium P. acnes Zappae after the genre-bending and iconoclastic Zappa - whose surname in Italy also means "hoe" - in a nod to the agrarian roots of the wine-related institute where the discovery was made. "This is the first time it's been found that a micro-organism can switch from a human to a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1433330/acne-causing-bacteria-strain-found-vines-named-after-frank?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1433330/acne-causing-bacteria-strain-found-vines-named-after-frank?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2014 20:59:35 +0000 She was a North Korean success story. For more than two decades, the woman, now 50, dabbled in businesses along the border between China and North Korea. She sold rice, traded foreign currency and opened a massage parlour in China. She travelled between the two countries with relative ease and was making sufficient money to live comfortably, so much so that she rebuffed invitations to join a sister who had defected to South Korea. But the woman, who did not want her name used out of fear for her... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1430659/killing-kim-jong-uns-uncle-chills-north-korean-expats-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1430659/killing-kim-jong-uns-uncle-chills-north-korean-expats-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:45:30 +0000 Scientists say they found traces of nickel and iron in the powerful jets shooting out of black hole candidate 4U 1630-47, a small black hole just a few times the mass of our sun. It may help solve a scientific puzzle that has lingered for decades. Astronomers have known for years that hyper-dense black holes shoot matter into the universe in high-speed streams known as relativistic jets. However, nobody knew exactly what type of material the jets were spewing. "It was one of the unsolved... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1357911/scientists-discover-jets-shooting-black-hole-contain-nickel-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1357911/scientists-discover-jets-shooting-black-hole-contain-nickel-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Nov 2013 19:01:31 +0000 The coming of age of horror cinema in Thailand might seem like an odd subject for a princess to address. But Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya has become an ambassador for the nation's growing reputation as a hub for slasher, horror and monster films. Recently the princess led a delegation of Thai officials, including the country's deputy prime minister and minister of commerce, in their first Los Angeles road show to promote the country's resources, talent and desirability as a film... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1351804/thailand-promotes-its-locations-and-film-making-talent-west?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1351804/thailand-promotes-its-locations-and-film-making-talent-west?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:30:02 +0000 A young chimpanzee will yawn when a human does, regardless of whether the face is familiar, according to a study that suggests contagious yawning grows stronger in our primate cousins as they grow up. Researchers yawned, gaped or wiped their nose in front of 33 chimpanzees orphaned by central Africa's illegal bush meat trade and housed at a Sierra Leone primate rehabilitation centre. They expected the chimps would more readily copy their "mother", a villager who feeds, cuddles and grooms the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1335334/scientist-finds-contagious-yawning-takes-hold-among-older?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1335334/scientist-finds-contagious-yawning-takes-hold-among-older?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:26:08 +0000 Researchers who attached electronic monitors to half a dozen Alpine swifts were shocked to discover that migrating birds fly nonstop for 200 days. That's right, the birds remained airborne for more than six months, eating, drinking and sleeping on the fly, so to speak. Swiss scientists recently published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. Since the 1970s, ornithologists have speculated that the alpine swift's smaller cousin, the common swift, stayed airborne for much of the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1330318/alpine-swifts-fly-six-months-time-study-finds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1330318/alpine-swifts-fly-six-months-time-study-finds?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Oct 2013 16:00:00 +0000 It's a question that has long fascinated and flummoxed those who study human behaviour: from whence comes the impulse to dream? Are dreams generated from the brain's "top" - the high-flying cortical structures that allow us to reason, perceive, act and remember? Or do they come from the brain's "bottom" - the unheralded brainstem, which oversees such basic bodily functions as respiration, heart rate, salivation and temperature control? At stake is what to make of the funny, sexual, scary and... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1325255/researchers-conclude-dreams-originate-brainstem?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1325255/researchers-conclude-dreams-originate-brainstem?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Oct 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Hannibal Lecter can probably feel for his victims, but only if you ask him. A brain-imaging study of 18 violent, psychopathic criminals in the Netherlands, the largest such study undertaken, suggests they can summon empathy when prompted. The report, published in the current issue of the journal Brain, showed that empathic circuits that are unconsciously activated in the brains of normal people may be dormant or switched off in psychopaths - not absent, as commonly thought. Those circuits, the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1292149/violent-psycho-paths-can-show-empathy-says-study?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1292149/violent-psycho-paths-can-show-empathy-says-study?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 A quadriplegic has used thought to make a robotic hand feed her chocolate. A monkey moved a computer cursor using brain waves. But how the brain "learns" to control something without sending the signal through a spine and nerves remains a mystery. It turns out we learn to move a robotic arm or computer cursor with the same neurons we use to learn to ride a bicycle or catch a ball. On a neurobiological level, that deceptively simple truth could have profound effect on how future devices could... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1261623/secret-brain-control-practice-makes-perfect?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1261623/secret-brain-control-practice-makes-perfect?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 An intensive campaign to combat HIV/Aids with costly antiretroviral drugs in rural South Africa has increased life expectancy by more than 11 years and significantly reduced the risk of infection for healthy individuals, according to new research. The study, published in the journal Science, comes as wealthy Western nations debate how best to stretch limited Aids funding at a time of economic stress. With an annual price tag of US$500 to US$900 per patient, antiretroviral therapy programmes have... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1157164/anti-hiv-drug-effort-boosts-life-expectancy-south-africa?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1157164/anti-hiv-drug-effort-boosts-life-expectancy-south-africa?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000