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Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going-so far as I can tell-but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I'm not working, I'm as likely as not to be foraging in the Web's info-thickets'reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they're sometimes likened, hyperlinks don't merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)

A new study from Forrester proves that the majority of Americans are a bunch of lazy re-tweeters. Ninety-three percent of online consumers in emerging markets of China, India, Mexico and Brazil use social media tools at least once-a-month. U.S. and European consumers are far more likely to use social media as a spectator-like sport, joining it and then just watching it fly by. In the U.S., 68% of social media users are joiners, which means they maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networks. Only 73% are spectators, or users who mostly just read blogs, online forums, customer ratings/reviews and tweets, listen to podcasts and watch videos. This number is strikingly similar in Europe (EU-7 countries, to be specific), with 69% of users classified as spectators and 50% as joiners.

A new study from the University of Reading highlights how climate change is having a detrimental effect on an endangered tropical bird population.

As I read both Carr and Shirky over the past couple weeks-who both seek parallels between the rise of the internet and digital social media and the invention of the printing press in the 16th century-I couldn't help thinking about medieval manuscripts. Since the early 1990s, both medievalists and electronic media theorists have pointed to the hypertexted quality of medieval illuminated manuscripts in making complementary claims: medievalists to continuing cultural relevancy and electronic media theorists in continuity to literary tradition. The medieval books we admire so much today are distinguished by the remarkable visual images, in the body of a text and in the margins, that scholars have frequently compared to hypertexted images on internet "pages."

As a kid growing up near the space program in Huntsville, Ala., reading as much science fiction as he could get his hands on, Kasting had space exploration on his mind all the time. It influenced who he is today as well as the research he's most interested in conducting. By studying early Earth's atmosphere and the origins of oxygen in it, Kasting has become one of the foremost experts on planetary habitable zones. In his book, "How to Find a Habitable Planet," Kasting explains how his research with NASA may be able to detect worlds outside of our solar system that are suitable for sustaining life.

Auburn University researchers said oil mats submerged in the seabed more than a year after the biggest oil spill in U.S. history pose long-term threats to coastal ecosystems across the northern Gulf of Mexico. The study, released on Tuesday by the school's engineering department, showed that tarballs churned to the surface by Tropical Storm Lee and deposited along Alabama beaches this month had "essentially identical" chemical composition as samples taken from mats after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. "Our interpretation of these observations is that submerged tar mats buried offshore of this coastline are breaking apart to yield these tar balls," the study reads, estimating the tarballs in question contained about 17 percent oil by mass.

Macro health news breaks when there is a natural disaster, a scientific breakthrough, or a new twist in a policy debate (see: "ACOs"). I read up on the facts and try to make sense of the latest turn of events, but usually from a comfortable distance. Micro health news breaks when a loved one gets a serious diagnosis. Then I follow the unfolding health care story with intensity and I care more about the outcome.

The terse announcement came just after 9:45 p.m. Sunday from Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. "POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern Time," he wrote on Twitter, sharing the same message that had just been transmitted to the White House press corps. According to Brian Williams, the "NBC Nightly News" anchor, some journalists received a three-word e-mail that simply read, "Get to work.

A device the size of a deck of playing cards that can track temperature, humidity, light and barometric pressure is moving from the shipping world to the realm of research to help develop a better understanding of how the climate is changing.