In the beautiful hideout of Falassarna, Crete (see below), I am blogging today from the terrace of my hotel room, overlooking a wonderful beach. Although still "connected" and in touch with the…

Short post about this URL, a Google Doc spread sheet. Not sure if Google+ will take off and stay off the ground. I used Google Wave which disappeared into the sea.If you are a  Science blogger…

Metasequoia, a deciduous conifer, and one of the common fossils found in many of the Eocene sites of the Pacific northwest, flourished in Oregon's forests for millions of years. In honor of this long…

New neurological research, using, of course, the ever-popular giant axon of squid, shows that neurons are pretty darn clever at picking signal out of noise. And what's more, they're sensitive to…

Good morning/afternoon/evening, and welcome to the Spider News. Today, we have two arachnid novelties for you. Firstly, old age affects us all, even spiders. Researchers have found that, as spiders…

Many of my clients are expressing deep fears about the future. They are concerned quite naturally about their families, personal finances, and so forth, but also about global affairs. I am…

This video has become quite popular in the past month. Chances are you've already seen it. If so, my apologies, but it's just too funny.Here's a quick summary for you: cat barks, cat sees owner, cat…

   Tomorrow, that is.  On July 12th, 2011, Neptune will have completed exactly one orbit around the Sun since it was discovered on September 23rd, 1846.  So,  Happy Birthday,…

The Columbian Mammoth, the official state fossil of Washington, crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America some one million years ago and made a home roaming the vast grasslands that…

Much of the island of Crete is Miocene and filled with fossil mollusks, bivalves, gastropods who lived 5 to 23 million years ago in warm, tropical seas. They are easily collected from their pink…

Maybe Nosferatu was a good name for this cat after all. He loves to leap at our legs, clamp on with his front claws and start chomping. Same for our arms. Cujo the cat would have been a good name,…

I stumbled upon the song “Conquistador” today and was stunned by the parallels between Procol Harum’s lyrical references to the Vietnam War and current US military actions. How many decisive…

“I am going Nuts” introduced a misunderstood little gem, the Nutmeg, and expounded a little on its preparation. Pure myristicine without safrole, elemicin, and likely unknown ones inside nutmeg,…

In a letter to Nature, Mark Ptashne, Oliver Hobert, and Eric Davidson question an editorial that appeared in the journal (Nature). The editorial, focused on the International Human Epigenome…

This week's friday fossil is Mesolimulus. Although it's admittedly very pretty, Mesolimulus is actually a friday fossil because, if you were to wander along the Northwest Atlantic coast, you be…

For a long while now, having watched bubbles form and pop, I have found it frustrating how people pile into assets with straight line trajectories.  I first noticed it in the time of the dot-com…

Came across this nice video that explains how the Northern light forms, made by Per Byhring and the physics department of the University of Oslo. In it, it is explained how solar storms trigger…

I'm always a bit disappointed with myself when I find out that there's been a space mission that I didn't know about. But I was really annoyed with myself for not keeping up with MESSENGER (a…

This instance of my "guess the plot" contest will be hopefully raising fewer controversies than the former one. You are asked to explain what the figure represents, possibly guessing the units on the…