A hormone thought to encourage bonding between mothers and their babies may foster social behavior in some adults with autism, French researchers said on Monday.

Two Belgian trains, carrying a combined 300 passengers, were involved in a head-on collision today.

People are afraid to lose money and an unusual study released on Monday explains why -- the brain's fear center controls the response to a gamble.

The Lancet medical journal formally retracted a paper on Tuesday that caused a 12-year international battle over links between the three-in-one childhood MMR vaccine and autism.

President Barack Obama made Haiti relief efforts a top priority for the U.S. government on Thursday.

Traumatized Haitians slept out in parks and streets on Thursday, fearing aftershocks to the catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings and buried countless people.

A major earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly thousands of people as it toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike and left the Caribbean nation appealing for international help.

Rescue crews on Saturday intensified the search for victims at a plush Brazilian beach resort ravaged by mudslides and flooding that have killed at least 64 people in three states.

Oman's minister of finance forecast on Saturday GDP in real terms for 2010 at 6.1 percent, and inflation at 3.5 percent, without giving comparative figures for the previous year. Ahmad Mekki, who is also the minister of national economy, told reporters that Oman's total debt as of the end of 2009 stood at 722 million Omani riyals ($1.88 billion), with domestic debt accounting for 252 million riyals of the total figure.

Hurricane Bill weakened to post-tropical storm status on Monday after lashing Eastern Canada with heavy winds and rain and pounding the U.S. East Coast with heavy seas that killed two people.

Hong Kong on Thursday opened its first DigPlayground at Cyberpor, which is also the first unique outdoor digital playground in Asia.

Income investors are snatching up a new form of pseudo municipal bonds known as Build America Bonds (BAB).

The World Health Organization reported on Monday that 985 cases of influenza A (H1N1) have been reported across twenty countries.

The influenza AH1N1 the virus that has claimed the lives of 19 people in Mexico is on the decrease according to the Federal Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos the El Universal reported.

This first swine flu death in the U.S. has been confirmed in Texas with the death of a 23 month old toddler, this is first death of its kind to take place outside of Mexico.

California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, on Tuesday declared a state of emergency to tackle the swine flu outbreak in the most populous U.S. state.

Fears that any tentative green shoots in the global economy could be trampled by a deadly outbreak of swine flu put markets on edge on Monday, after world policymakers said over the weekend that a recovery could begin later this year but plenty of downside risk remained.

Two Italian nuns kidnapped by Somali gunmen in a cross-border raid into Kenya in November have been freed.

Venezuela seized a local bank owned by Allen Stanford on Thursday to stem massive online deposit withdrawals as the impact of a U.S. fraud case against the Texan billionaire spread through Latin America.

On Friday evening a British Airways passenger jet with 72 people on board crash-landed at London City Airport. All passengers were evacuated to safety, the Associated Press reported.

A 1937 Bugatti sports car that was found in an English doctor's garage for almost 50 years was sold at an auction in Paris on Feb. 7, for about $4.4 million, the associated press reports reported.

On Monday a 38-year-old woman who ignited a fierce right-to-die debate that convulsed Italy and dragged in the Vatican died after spending 17 years in a vegetative state.

New Rubik's 360, is not a cube. Two-time British Cube-solving champion Dan Harris, 24, from Gorleston, Norfolk, has tested Rubik's 360 on the Sunday Telegraph.

Researchers have found fossils of the world's biggest snake ever from northeastern Colombia, a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds from nose to tail tip.

A small, hot earth-like planet has been discovered by astronomers led by the French Space Agency using the COROT space telescope, detected outside the Solar System, which has a surface to walk on.

The Worlds second octuplets live are doing well after a Californian woman gave birth to eight babies at the same time, in Los Angeles, CA on Monday.