Threat of Violence Quashes Even
Virtual Rushdie Appearance

[Update 21-Jan ] ‘Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie'
A WRITER UNDER THREAT, AGAIN

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group – whose name in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria means "western education is sinful" – is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

"A police official said the blaze broke out overnight at the offices of Charlie Hebdo weekly, and the exact cause remains unclear. No injuries were reported. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because an investigation into the fire is under way. Police cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building."

Home-made bombs are being sent to physicists in Mexico. Colleagues around the world should ensure their own security, urges Gerardo Herrera Corral.

(Phys.org) -- In the course of its evolution, the architecture of the mouse brain may have barely changed. Similar to the tiny ancestors of modern mammals that lived about 80 million years ago, nerve cells in the mouse visual cortex are densely packed in a small area of ​​the brain. However, during the subsequent evolution of larger brains the architecture of the cerebral cortex was radically restructured. This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, the University of Göttingen and the Bernstein Center Göttingen. The brains of larger mammals, such as humans, however, have a completely different structure to those of mice. Processes of self-organisation led to the emergence of modules in which neurons conjointly are responsible for specific tasks.

An "annular eclipse" will be visible from a 240 to 300km-wide swathe of Earth stretching from Asia across the Pacific to the western US on Monday.

Researchers in Spain have found that many of the individuals claiming to see the aura of people actually present the neuropsychological phenomenon known as "synesthesia".