It’s not that it’s easy to go with the flow and go with the crowd. It’s just that it’s common, writes Kieran Shannon 

Here's your morning bulletin.

Irish third-level colleges are the beach donkeys to the thoroughbreds of the US when it comes to funding, yet they persist in playing a global ratings game they cannot win, says Kyran Fitzgerald.

Our universe, it seems, came into existence in the Big Bang 13.7bn years ago.

Legislative roadblocks to President Trump’s tax reform plans could bring US economic expansion

Irish women are increasingly turning to ‘hairapy’ to get their heads right, discovers Deirdre Reynolds

A former aide to US president John F Kennedy with strong links to West Cork has wound up his 30-year philanthropic fund with a record €100,000 donation to a domestic violence support group.

Long-time a maker of furniture for pubs, Monaghan Bros won a contract at Yale, writes Trish Dromey

The separation of Church and State is easier to advocate than practise, as the National Maternity Hospital controversy shows, says TP O’Mahony

Autism genes may have been conserved during human evolution because they make us smarter, say scientists.

Doing a bit of travelling around the country it was hard to ignore the huge amount of discarded tyres blighting the landscape.

Maciej Kisilowski says the illiberal agenda is effective because its two target groups’ conservative cultural values inherently align. He tells progressives to get used to it or innovate.

Yale University has decided to keep the name of a residential college which honours 19th-century alumnus John C Calhoun, an ardent supporter of slavery.

In politics, the benefits of talking like a real person as Donald Trump does are questionable, especially in a winner-takes-all electoral system like the US, writes Leonid Bershidsky

China’s shock move to trigger the biggest one-day decline in its currency for more than 20 years is evidence that the currency wars are still live.

According to the Old Testament, a talking serpent led Adam and Eve astray, with dire consequences for us all, writes Richard Collins

Fashion designer Don O’Neill; Cork-based Irish furniture designer Joseph Walsh; and art historian and author Nicholas Fox Weber were conferred with honorary doctorates at a ceremony in the Aula Maxima at UCC yesterday.

The defining events in Eugene O’Neill’s life took place before he was born. <B>Liam Heylin </b>on an unblinking biography.

Protesters rallied across America for a third day over a New York grand jury’s decision not to charge a white police officer over the chokehold death of an unarmed black man.

Actress Elizabeth Norment, who portrayed the secretary to Kevin Spacey’s hard-driving politico Frank Underwood in the Netflix series House Of Cards, has died. She was 61 years old.

With a gay marriage referendum due in spring, are gay quarters a relic of the past? asks Kay Cairns

The French rugby union’s HQ in Marcoussis is a quiet enough sort of spot at the best of times, but it must be positively eerie today as so many of its current residents come to terms with the events of Wednesday evening.

Ireland has been hit with extreme snowfall as far back as the 9th century, according to a RTÉ documentary.

Sweeping fuchsia landscapes filmed by the military in the Congo in World War 2 have made Richard Mosse famous in the art world.

In his first public comments about the 2012 Connecticut school massacre, the father of gunman Adam Lanza said what his son did couldn’t “get any more evil” and he now wishes his son had never been born.

A single spray of the “cuddle” hormone oxytocin can temporarily help children with autism overcome their disability, research has shown.

Yale University in the United States says it is investigating a report of a gunman on the campus.

So let’s see if we can find the thread that connects some recent news from the technology world.

Team Montenotte 51 Yale University 54

Dan Buckley traces the career thus far of Dublin-born Samantha Power who has just been appointed US ambassador to the UN by President Obama

A diet containing too much salt may play a role in auto-immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), research suggests.

Moons like the one depicted in the film Avatar may be among the most common places to find alien life, scientists believe.

While scientists have long theorised about an addiction-like quality to certain foods, only recently has the idea been the subject of intense scientific research, writes Laura Beil

While scientists have long theorised about an addiction-like quality to certain foods, only recently has the idea been the subject of intense scientific research, writes Laura Beil

Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

The Road Safety Authority says new guidelines on medical fitness to drive will be rolled out before the end of the year.

Clinical depression can shrink the brain by blocking the formation of new nerve connections, a study has shown.

Sprawling cities will put the world under pressure, says Nina Chestney

Reality television has many ethical question marks hanging over its short history, says Colette Sheridan , who puts the dark side of light entertainment under the spotlight

HEALTH minister Dr James Reilly has promised that the head of the Government’s suicide prevention body would be “immediately replaced” after he announced he was retiring early from the post.

James Franco has split from his long-term girlfriend.

A HORN from one of the last surviving dinosaurs could be clinching evidence that a meteorite strike ended the extinct reptiles’ reign on Earth.