The Church of Scientology is a notoriously difficult subject for a journalist. The press has long been considered an enemy of the Church, which was founded half a century ago by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Doctors' sloppy handwriting kills more than 7,000 people annually. It's a shocking statistic, and, according to a July 2006 report from the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine , preventable medication mistakes also injure more than 1.5 million Americans annually. Many such errors result from unclear abbreviations and dosage indications and illegible writing on some of the 3.2 billion prescriptions written in the U.S. every year. To address the problem—and give the push for electronic ...

Like pretty much every other agency in the government, NASA is likely to be hurting for money over the next few years. The end of the Space Shuttle program, which comes with Atlantis' final flight next month, will free up some cash. But at best, NASA's budget will be flat in 2012, and given the mood in Congress, "at best" isn't something to count on. And thanks to the cost overruns plaguing the yet-to-be-launched James Webb Space ...

A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all such studies temporarily off-limits for taxpayer dollars, on the grounds that they violate a 1996 law. The decision could be a devastating step backward for a promising new science that has the potential to generate new treatments and possibly even cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's — and the reaction ...

Largely as a result of sex-selective abortions, Asia today is short of 160 million women. They have disappeared silently over several decades, but their absence can be seen in classrooms filled with boys, in huddles of bachelors on city streets and in higher rates of bride trafficking and prostitution elicited by growing numbers of sexually frustrated men. Researchers often speak of Asia's missing women as a consequence of a traditional favoring of sons. Beijing-based science journalist Mara Hvistendahl acknowledges this ...

Tommy Barrett is a dreamy-eyed fifth-grader who lives with his parents, twin brothers, two cats and a turtle in San Jose, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley. He's an honor-roll student who likes math and science and video games. He's also a world-class expert on Animorph and Transformer toys. "They're like cars and trains and animals that transform into robots or humans--I love them!" he shouts exuberantly. And that is sometimes a problem. For a time, in fact, Tommy's fascination ...

It's starting to look like this mission is too tough for anyone. Like his predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Jerry Brown of California was elected on a pledge to erase the enormous deficit. Brown is trying hard. He's more hands-on with lawmakers than the "Governator" was, and he's determined to find a permanent rather than a temporary solution. He needs Republican votes to extend higher taxes, but they won't budge. So his hands are tied, just as Schwarzenegger's ...

The fallout from Fukushima continues. Concerns about an effort by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to revive his country's nuclear power program helped drive millions of Italians to the polls June 13, when they voted overwhelmingly to block any such revival amid safety concerns following the meltdown in March of the Japanese plant. Berlusconi's name didn't appear on the ballots, which also offered voters the opportunity to overturn laws governing the privatization of water and a ...

Surely the most eagerly awaited film of the summer, J.J. Abrams' Super 8 whisks the viewer back to a night in 1979, when some Ohio kids shooting a zombie movie witness a terrible train crash. What escaped from the train, and what the kids do to find it, are just two of the secrets that fans of Abrams's Lost, Alias, Cloverfield and the Star Trek reboot have tried valiantly to unearth. All will be revealed Friday, June ...

At Lake Zoar, near New London, Conn., Sergeant W. E. Bushy of the state police cast bread upon the waters, literally. He was hunting for the body of a Mrs. George Lewis. Recalling a traditional procedure,† he set five loaves adrift, having to guess where to start them as Mrs. Lewis had drowned unseen, while fishing, her empty boat being the only clue. Four loaves floated idly about. One came to a purposeful halt. Grappling beneath the arrested loaf, Sergeant ...