Reporter Janet Reitman Peers ‘Inside Scientology’

In the 1930s, L. Ron Hubbard was a pulp fiction writer, best known for his fantasy and science fiction stories. But after an attempt at Hollywood screenwriting, Hubbard decided to go a different route. In 1950, he published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, a self-help book that became a bestseller and launched a [...]

Today’s Polar Bears Trace Ancestry To … Ireland?

Nearly 12 percent of Americans claim some Irish ancestry. Even President Obama has a little Irish in him. But we’ve got nothing on polar bears. According to a study in the journal Current Biology, every polar bear alive today can trace its ancestry to one mama bear that lived in Ireland during the last Ice [...]

Read His Lips: No New Taxes

President Obama and Speaker Boehner may be the center of attention in Washington right now, but just behind the scenes — and controlling a significant part of the discussion — is anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist. In 1986, Norquist’s group Americans for Tax Reform came up with a simple document with two simple messages: ONE, oppose [...]

‘The Last Werewolf’ Reinvents A Hairy Myth

Jake Marlowe is a man you’d want to sit next to at a dinner party. He’s cultured and debonair; he savors fine literature, food and female companionship; he quotes Vladimir Nabokav, D.H. Lawrence and Starsky and Hutch. In his 200 years, Marlowe — the world’s last werewolf — has learned a lot about the finer [...]

Comic-Con 2011: Guillermo del Toro Makes An Offer To Eager Fans

Someone asked me what Comic-Con panels I was most excited about and I almost could not answer. These three days are about rooting for stories, taping sound for stories, cooking up ideas for stories. I’m really excited about the performance capture panel, but that’s probably not what that person meant, right? Then — there’s Guillermo [...]

Lollipops: Pacifiers For Bar Patrons?

A city councilor on the island city of Victoria in British Columbia says she’s found a new way to keep drunken bar patrons from becoming violent once the bars let out: lollipops. Councilor Charlayne Thornton-Joe says she and others passed them out to inebriated partygoers as they exited pubs on Canada Day this month. There [...]

U.S. Looks To European Allies For Defense Help

With U.S. military spending coming under new pressure from congressional budget cutters, Pentagon planners want European allies to pick up a greater share of the defense burden. The question is which way to look. West European countries are the most accustomed to working with the U.S. military, but they are now the least inclined to [...]

The Kittiwake: Winging It, Survival-Wise

On a remote, treeless island 60 miles south of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, an old military radar tower has become one of the best bird observation sites in the world. Hundreds of black-legged kittiwakes nest on the tower. As one researcher has discovered, the seabirds may have a lot of flexibility when it comes to [...]

Your Health Podcast: Calorie Counts To Costly Vaccines

People with tinnitus hear unpleasant sounds that aren’t really there. Doctors can’t do much for this chronic ringing in the ears, so it’s no surprise that tinnitus patients are often eager to try alternative therapies in search of relief. One promising new approach involves just sitting quietly and listening to the noise. This week we [...]

Obama-Boehner Breakdown Leaves Many Questions, Fewer Answers

Now that the one-on-one debt ceiling talks between President Obama and Speaker John Boehner have broken down, there are obviously more questions than answers about what exactly happened and where matters go from here. Let’s go through just a few of them. The meta question is obviously will the nation’s leaders be able to achieve [...]