Dishing dirt behind someone’s back is a beneficial activity, say scientists. Spreading gossip—defined as alerting others that a person has behaved badly—helps maintain social order and even lowers the stress of the gossiper, according to a new study out of UC Berkeley and reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Researchers set up experiments involving people cheating […]

Maggots may work faster than any surgeon when it comes to cleaning large wounds that are slow to heal. Typically, doctors use scalpels and special enzymes to lift dead tissue from such wounds; researchers in France wanted to see if maggots could speed the process. They compared the two therapies on patients suffering from venous […]