Mercyvill

(Getty Images) Pleasure-inducing implants can induce orgasms at the push of a button, but as Frank Swain discovers, there’s a curious history behind this technology. Scientists have created a bionic hand which allows the amputee to feel lifelike sensations from their fingers This month, news outlets worldwide issued breathless reports of a wondrous implant that causes orgasms at the touch of a button. The Orgasmatron, patented by Dr Stuart Meloy, is a small box wired to the spine that can send out waves of pleasure signals whenever the user desires. Dig a little deeper though, and it turns out this technology has a strange and fascinating backstory.

(Getty Images) Fatherless pregnancies happen in nature more than we thought, says Frank Swain, so what’s stopping human beings from doing the same? Sleeping in a room with too much light has been linked to an increased risk of piling on the pounds Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, as the singer Tammy Wynette famously said. As if doing the reproductive heavy lifting wasn’t bad enough, nature played a cosmic prank in making women need men to complete the task, and giving them a limited window in which to have children. Perhaps it would be simpler if women could go it alone. After all, not all animals are so hung up on sex. As New Scientist reported earlier this month, virgin births in nature are common . The females of several large and complex animals, such as lizards and sharks , can reproduce without males, a process called parthenogenesis – and now we’re realising it happens in the wild more often than we thought. So...

(Thinkstock) It’s almost impossible to get a laugh by self-tickling, says David Robson, and the reason why tells us surprising things about the brain and consciousness. Why do we laugh when we are being tickled and how can it be a relaxing experience? If you want to probe some of the great mysteries of the human mind, all you need is a duster and your feet. Sit back, take your shoes and socks off, and gently stroke its feathers against your sole. Now ask a friend, parent or child to do the same for you. If you are like most people, you will be left stony-faced by one, but convulsed in a pleasurable agony by the other. How come?

A journey to the village of Chibok, where insurgents hide in the bush as families mourn the loss of their daughters. On Monday morning, May 12, I sat in the backseat of a Toyota Corolla, headed to Chibok. With a satin abaya draping my body in a sheath of black, and my hair curled underneath a black chiffon hijab, my careful effort to blend into northeastern Nigeria’s conservative, predominately Muslim society appeared to be working. The soldiers who peered into the backseat gave me casual glances, waving us past checkpoint after checkpoint. “This is the heartland of Boko Haram,” said the governor of Borno State when I visited him in the state capital of Maiduguri along the way.

Allies of Robert Mugabe have labeled T.B. Joshua, the prominent televangelist, a "Satanist." HIV/AIDS patient Miss Mary Udoh receives "miraculous healing" from Prophet T.B. Joshua of the synagogue Church For All Nations during a service at Ikotun-Egbe district in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria.(Reuters). Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity are powerful forces in sub-Saharan politics. So, too, is the belief in prophecy and sorcery. In Zimbabwe, it is tense times, with uncertainty about President Robert Mugabe's health, the dates of the next election, and whether constitutional and other reforms will be achieved. Taken together, faith and politics are the context for the Zimbabwean partisan wrangling over a Nigerian Pentecostal preacher.

A generation after Fela Kuti invented a genre and challenged his oil-rich government, his youngest son Seun is carrying on the tradition. Nigerians file past the body of Afrobeat star Fela Anikulapo-Kuti at his funeral in 1997 / Reuters It was 1969 when Sandra Izsadore first heard Fela Kuti. The Nigerian musical icon, more commonly known as just Fela, was performing at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He sang in his native tongue, Yoruba. "I asked him what he had been singing about, and he told me, 'I was singing about soup,' so I started laughing," Izsadore said.

Oona Räisänen/Flickr The European Parliament complex in Brussels, where I happen to be sitting at the moment, is meant to be a monument to post-World War II continental ideals of peaceable integration, tolerance, free speech, and openness. All of these notions seem to be under attack at once, and what is striking to me, as a relatively frequent visitor to Europe over the past year, is that not many people—until a few hours ago, at least—seem to believe that their union, and their basic freedoms, are under threat.

Steven Gerrard says he would not be leaving Liverpool if the club had offered him a contract last summer. The Reds captain, 34, was offered a new deal in November but has opted to end his 25-year Anfield stay and is nearing a move to Los Angeles Galaxy. "If a contract had been put in front of me in pre-season I would have signed it," Gerrard told the Liverpool Echo.   The midfielder says a November chat with manager Brendan Rodgers about reducing his playing time was crucial.

(Thinkstock) Running a business without bosses, job titles and hierarchy might sound like a recipe for chaos. A number of companies, however, are testing out the idea with the aim of keeping employees happy, clients satisfied and boosting the bottom line. Richard Sheridan is typical of many managers who ditched the organizational chart, after being burned from his experience at a hierarchical organisation. By1999 Sheridan was vice president of research and development at a public company, where he had worked his way up the career ladder. Even though he was successful on paper, he hated going into work every day. “I was fed up with the stupid quarterly debt marches and stupid quarterly reviews,” Sheridan said. “When I see stupid I want to fix it.”