Read this and you'll look smart. You don't have to be intelligent to impress people -- you just have to fake it. Here's a daily list of fascinating articles that will wow your friends, surprise your co-workers and make you seem sharp at a cocktail party or over the lunch counter....
- Are you having a paranormal experience or is it just your alarm clock ringing? Scientists debunk ghost sightings as electromagnetic energy emitted by power lines, clock radios and other electric sources -- and observe test subjects in a 'haunted room' they've set up.
- Coronary heart disease tops the World Health Organization's deadliest diseases. Here's a list of the others.
- The prices of companies affected by CIA-backed coups in Guatemala, Iran, Chile and Cuba all went up in weeks and months preceding the coups -- suggesting that people knew about regime-toppling before it happened made a profit off of it.
- MTV launched a free, ad-supported music-video service that mimics Hulu -- including embed music video on blogs and personal web pages.
- You can thank Congress for the web in its current state -- specifically the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that Clinton signed into law a decade ago Thursday.
- It's possible to boost your brainpower and stave off diseases (see bullet 2!) by regularly taking part in debates and doing crossword puzzles. But what if the thought of Sudoku makes you cringe and your considering one of those brain-training gadgets instead, read this. The experts put them to the test.
- It's getting worse faster for the newspaper industry. The decline in paid circulation is accelerating and only two papers saw an increase in readership. All of the top-25 papers reported lower paid circulation.
