We humans can brag about our large brain, but in fact most mammals — from aardvarks to zebras — have big brains for their body size. For years, scientists have wondered what evolutionary forces pumped up the mammal brain so much, and now they may have an answer.

Mammals needed a better sense of smell.

The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival draws to a close this weekend, and critic Kenneth Turan has been in the South of France taking in the films, the sights ... and the controversy.

Turan tells NPR's Renee Montagne about the latest news out of the festival, involving filmmaker Lars von Trier's press conference for his Cannes entry, Melancholia.

Hearing gossip about people can change the way you see them — literally.

Negative gossip actually alters the way our visual system responds to a particular face, according to a study published online by the journal Science.

The findings suggest that the human brain is wired to respond to gossip, researchers say. And it adds to the evidence that gossip helped early humans get ahead.

It would be easy — expected, even — for Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel to be enemies. After all, he killed Johnson's only son, in 1993. He went to prison for that — and toward the end of his sentence, he and Johnson made peace.

As a teenager in Minneapolis, Israel was involved with gangs and drugs. One night at a party, he got into a fight with Laramiun Byrd, 20, and shot and killed him. Oshea is now 34; he finished serving his prison sentence for murder about a year and a half ago.

In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong said the cyclist was doping the first time he won the Tour de France in 1999.

Scott Pelley said Armstrong was using EPO — a performance-enhancing drug that affects production of red blood cells — in 1999 and said he used EPO to prepare for the Tour de France in 2000 and 2001.

"I saw it in his refrigerator," Pelley said. "I saw him inject it more than one time."

CBS reports:

A deadly virus is spreading among horses in the western United States and parts of Canada.  The highly contagious Equine Herpes Virus-1 isn’t a threat to humans.  But it spreads easily among horses and even llamas and alpacas.  So far, it’s caused scores of horse owners to quarantine their animals.  And as KUNC's Kirk Siegler reports, it’s also forced the cancelations of horse shows and competitions in Colorado and other states.

During a week-long conference last week, researchers from the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology announced they had made robots they called lingodroids with the ability to create their own "spoken" language.

Supporters of a large, proposed water storage project in northern Colorado staged what was billed as a jobs and economy rally in Loveland Thursday. 

Colorado Republican Congressman Cory Gardner was among the speakers.  He said says the Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, would be a boost to the economy of northeastern Colorado.  

"We have to recognize that jobs and economic development across this state, are tied to our ability to store and deliver, clean, affordable water," Gardner said.

With the White House having raised expectations in advance, President Obama's speech Thursday about the Middle East and North Africa left many people in the region disappointed.

Obama was attempting to square a difficult circle. He wanted to reaffirm America's support for democratic aspirations, but at the same time did not want to worsen a rift with allies such as Saudi Arabia about the pace of change.

The March 11 earthquake just off the coast of Japan surprised many experts. Geologists say they didn't expect that big a quake in that spot.

But they do fear that more big quakes may be in the offing in or near Japan. Scientists can't tell when, but they're trying to narrow down where.

The answers lie amidst the huge plates that make up the Earth's crust. Think of them as like floating ice sheets on a lake.