Economists and Obama often wonder why the Stimulus didn't work.  Libertarians and the GOP think they know the answer, though they suffer from intellectual Fundamentalism of the same sort all…

This week's Friday Fossil is Helicoprion. What can I say. This is one weird bastard. And it used to look even weirder, The story is like this. At the turn of the last century, people started to…

Events of International Year of Chemistry kept me from writing for some while. I was so absorbed with all the research writing these days, that I could not find space and time to read anything…

In 1970, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori described what he called the "uncanny valley", which was a graph showing our affinity for a machine to its likeness of humans.   As robots look and act…

The Sea Isn't Level In all discussions of sea level it is absolutely vital to keep in mind at all times that the sea is a very dynamic ravenous beast that wants to devour your coastal lands. In…

I often joke, in reference to a black person, woman or gay complaining about some reference or joke in society or in the media about them, that I am all five groups every one of them jokes about,…

My attempt at stimulating your curiosity with a scientific graph last time worked quite well, and I want to try it again. This time, however, you should not consider yourself eligible to participate…

50 years ago today, Alan Shepard journeyed into the Final Frontier and became the first American in space, following USSR cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin by a period of weeks. Here is a look at some of…

As many of you know, I expressed here my strong doubts that the rumoured Higgs signal found by members of the ATLAS collaboration in the two-photon final state was due to a real particle, and went as…

In yesterday’s article on Science 2.0, Oh, Health Ranger...You Make Me Ill, said person was taken to task for saying: "The use of GMOs is the closest thing to 'Satanic' that you'll find in modern…

This week's Friday Fossil is Helicoprion. What can I say. This is one weird bastard. And it used to look even weirder, The story is like this. At the turn of the last century, people started to…

All media, bloggers and so on, do take note! Do not disregard the following, only in rather rational societies completely inconsequential bit of news: After being sought for a decade, one religious…

Thanks to all that read my previous post, “Sexy Standard Model Symmetries”. Most probably did not notice quite a few technical exchanges between David Halliday and myself. I was pretty darn sure I…

With Osama Bin Laden dead, conspiracy theorists will find a way to say it isn't him at all.   Sure, a 6'4" thin guy can be replaced by decoys rather easily but science has come a long way since…

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should…

The big bang was given it's name by Fred Hoyle, in order to make the theory sound absurd.  He metaphorically called it an explosion.   In the mist of time most people even some scientist…

In his article “The World Is Not Woven From Real Stuff” Sascha Vongehr raised the important matter of quantum physics and our perception of the natural world. He argued that “the feeling that facts…

Researchers say something about gastric bypass surgery changes the body’s metabolism that quickly improves Type 2 diabetes. But, before you call a surgeon, no one is going to be performing the…

"Dutch capital was employed to purchase goods in one country and sell them in another: so that the Dutch became carriers for others, instead of manufacturing and carrying for themselves.  Thus…