JAPAN

The 2011 Ig Nobel prize for medicine has been won by Mirjam Tuk from the Netherlands and her colleagues who found that people have a tendency to make fewer impulsive decisions when they have the urge to urinate.

Flashed on the side of a building here in Shanghai's historic Bund district, an image shows a giant ship named Hony, setting sail from China, traveling past the Statue of Liberty, past Big Ben, and bringing home crates of golden coins.

European stock index futures fell Friday, putting shares there firmly on course to post their biggest quarterly decline since the months following the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.

Mirjam Tuk from the Netherlands and her colleagues who found that people have a tendency to make fewer impulsive decisions when they have the urge to urinate have won the the 2011 Ig Nobel prize for medicine. Their research demonstrated that people make better decisions about some kinds of things but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.

Asian stocks fell Friday, extending the worst monthly performance since the most volatile days of the global financial crisis in October 2008, with Chinese shares racking up sharp losses.

New Zealand suffered its second ratings downgrade within hours on Friday as Standard & Poor's cut the country's rating by one notch because of its growing foreign debt, after rival Fitch Ratings' had taken similar action.

Winners’ research shows what happens when humans litter.

Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been accused of plagiarism for a series of paintings in his New York exhibit, suspected to have been copied from well-known photographs rather than inspired from his travels.

If History holds, Mitt Romney's healthy ways might prevent him from being the party's champion.

Amid a sluggish U.S. economy with inadequate job growth, there has been one unabashed bright spot: home mortgage interest rates, currently about 4.10 percent for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, are the lowest in decades. Is now a good time to take the plunge a purchase a home?

Bob Dylan's paintings exhibited at a New York art gallery have drawn criticism for similarities to several well-known photographs.

Prehypertension, which is blood pressure at the higher end of the normal range, appears to be associated with a greater risk of stroke, according to a meta-analysis.

A new research review confirms that people with diabetes have a somewhat increased risk of colon cancer -- but the reasons for the connection, and what should be done about it, remain unclear.

Spain nominated a film in Catalan for the first time ever on Wednesday as its candidate for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, ahead of a picture by two-time Oscar winner Pedro Almodovar which stars Antonio Banderas.

Check out the best Google Birthday Doodles of all time.

Have you ever head of something called Miracle fruit”? This is a tiny fruit, native to West Africa, that looks like a cranberry but can turn that which tastes sour into something that seems to tastes sweet. Interestingly, on its own, the fruit doesn't have too much of a taste. However, let its juices coat your mouth and for the next hour, anything sour will seem to taste sweet - limes taste like maple syrup and lemons become as sweet as candy, reports say.

Japanese households stayed put in gold during the market turmoil this month, in sharp contrast to a selling rush when prices surged in August, reflecting gradually spreading recognition of gold as an investment asset.

Asian stocks edged higher and a rally in the euro stalled on Wednesday, as investors looked for more signs that European leaders were tackling a debt crisis that threatens the financial system before committing bolder market bets

The long-beleaguered search engine company Yahoo! Inc. would probably be better off selling off pieces of itself rather than submit to a takeover in whole, given that the separate segments of the firm probably have more value than the sum of the individual parts. However, any such potential transaction won’t happen overnight.

Boeing's first delivered 787 Dreamliner has taken flight. The jet, sold to All Nippon Airways, took off from Boeing's manufacturing facility on Tuesday, heading for Japan for use in commercial air travel.

Kobe Steel Ltd , Japan's No.4 steelmaker, said on Tuesday it was in talks with China's Anshan Iron and Steel Group to jointly build a plant for high-strength automotive steel sheets in China, in a bid to tap growing demand for lighter vehicles there.