Facts & Trends

Bao Lulin was always being mistaken for someone else.  People would approach her at the restaurant where she worked in Guizho, China, asking why she didn't recognize them.  This October she discovered why: Lulin had an identical twin sister from whom ...

A study in JAMA Psychiatry found that women using hormonal birth control had an increased risk of receiving treatment for depression. Those on progestin-only pills or IUD's were 34% more likely, respectively, to begin using antidepressants than women not on ...

About 690,000 of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.—or about 6.3 percent—have been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor, according to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group.These immigrants, along with the ...

A 60-year-old Dutch man received a brain implant to cure his obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suddenly became a fanatical Johnny Cash fan. The patient said his doctors, “kept listening simply and solely to Johnny Cash.” ...

JetBlue said it would offer a chance to win free, round-trip tickets to other countries for disgusted customers whose preferred presidential candidate loses the election.  The company is planning to give away more than 1,000 tickets ...

Russia’s secret service ordered dozens of electric typewriters, saying that recent revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s online surveillance program made them distrust computer communications ...

Astronomers have spotted the most enormous black holes ever detected, inspiring new theories about how such pockets of extreme gravity form. Together, the two objects, which are roughly 300 million light-years away, have more mass than 30 billion suns, University ...

Number of U.S. prisoners exonerated last year: 125 Percentage of those exonerations in which no crime had occurred: 44 ...

Amateur astronomers can now put their observations to good use through the new Asteroid Data Hunter app.  The software, which works on almost any Windows or Mac computer, is a collaborative effort between NASA and Planetary Resources, a company that ...

Homeowners in Centennial, Colo., woke up to a pleasant surprise last Sunday morning: a group of teens who went around shoveling their neighbors' sidewalks and driveways free of charge. "They did everything: the whole driveway, the stoop, the whole sidewalk," ...