Birefringence and the polarized light 1. Definition Birefringence is a kind of optical phenomenon that when the light go through an anisotropic crystals, there are two emergent refracted…

A very interesting question has been posed by colleague Mark Changizi (see his fascinating blogs at www.science20.com) related to brain size as it relates to body size. He presents good…

Lego Turing Machine I just came across a wonderful teaching aid: Our success in implementing the Turing Machine as a physical device is exciting because the Turing Machine theoretical construct is…

    If you have ever wondered why we sleep, you are not alone. The puzzle of sleep and the question of why we sleep has been a much-researched topic yielding few really definitive…

Greg Critser started blogging here within a month after we opened the doors.  How did he hear of us?   I have no idea and neither does he but shortly after we started we were referenced by…

Reflecting an interest that I've had for some time, that has been rekindled due to its inherent entanglement with my fundamental area of research  - the nature of time, I am releasing the first…

Reflecting an interest that I've had for some time that has been rekindled due to its inherent entanglement with my fundamental area of research  - the nature of time, I am releasing the first…

"When I was your age, I used to change your diapers," said eighteen month old Sam Taylor to his father. Two years later, Sam correctly picked out his grandfather from a photo of his grammar school…

More Snow Anyone? We may get a little snow in England in a day or two.  Scotland, being in somewhat cooler climes, may get a little more. Quite apart from the UK Met Office's ability - or lack…

Predictable Barriers Precluding Any Consideration of Transversable Black Holes Through Outer Space #1 of The Three Part Series : Black Holes Through Outer Space By Marshall BarnesAET…

What is Nature’s Worst Design? Francisco Ayala Answers: "The human reproductive system. Twenty percent of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions and miscarriages in the first two months. In the…

If you happen to travel by air on good sunny day across India and  you are crossing Aravallis and hills of Udaipur and Ajmer and Jaipur  its needless to mention that hills which were once…

Toyota's sticky accelerators could be caused by a concerted attack by evil cosmic rays. Toyota has kept quiet about these malicious forces but this puff piece may have unmasked a sinister force that…

Here's a short sequence of art videos, which made me smile This line is just a space-filler to move the embedded screen down ;-) Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo. It's by Evelien Lohbeck from…

One of the original things that I've done in terms of reserach, has to do with super massive black holes and how they don't fit into a single reference frame from all points of view. I presented this…

Kim Griest Physics Department 0319 University of California, San DiegoLa Jolla, CA 92093 Offices: 3202 Mayer Hall, 858-534-0924 337 SERF, 858-534-8914 Griest/Fuller Lab: 4217…

Congratulations to Scientific Blogging's own Greg Critser, whose latest book, Eternity Soup is reviewed in Nature: Critser's book is a brilliant exposé of the increasingly popular anti-ageing…

Mark Ptashne, Oliver Hobert, and Eric Davidson talk sense on epigenomics: We were astonished to see two sentences in your Editorial on the International Human Epigenome Consortium (Nature 463, 587;…

At the New York Review of Books, physicist and science writer Jeremy Bernstein tells what it's like to witness an atomic explosion: With the renewed interest in nuclear weapons I have been struck by…

"Berlusconi at times has some remorses, but then he thinks at how rich he is and he feels fine again". Daniele Luttazzi