Why did the Babylonians and the Greeks approach astronomy so differently? In my last post I quoted Toulmin and Goodfield from their history of dynamics and astronomy, The Fabric of the Heavens, where…

I have recently watched Jill Bolte Taylor's interview at TED. Taylor is a neoroanatomist who specializes in the post-mortem examination of the human brain. In 1996 she experienced a stroke and was…

New Scientist tells us that some of my former IBM Research colleagues have been busy looking at ways to give bloggers inspiration: Want to get more people to read your blog? A software tool that…

A New Scientist article, Born believers: how your brain creates God, takes us through some recent research with children that suggests belief in supernatural beings is somehow hard-wired into the…

Globally environmental changes are happening very fast. Drying up of Aral sea and Sambher lake is one example. Drying up water bodies are another concern globally. Although 3 fourth of the earth is…

    The “New Rules for Time Travel ” and Sean Carroll’s Gate   Marshall Barnes, R&D Eng AET RaDAL United States of America February 16, 2010 (NEW! As of 3/4/2010, see…

"We were not yet prepared to claim that we had found a new charged lepton, but we were ready to claim that we had found something new. To accentuate our uncertainty I denoted the new particle by U…

...The Augmented Living Goods Program (AUG) submitted by a group of recent Savannah College of Art and Design graduates. Their design entered today's competition in 8th place after online voting…

There is a plaque on the south side of Trafalgar Square, just behind the statue of Charles I, that is the reference point from which all distances from London are measured. However, there is a far…

In popular culture the Greek Muses are seen as representations of artistic inspiration. Writers, and especially poets, are keen to express their mysterious source of insights as a territory inhabited…

Of Poetry And Justice What is the origin of the phrase 'poetic justice'? According to wikipedia English drama critic Thomas Rymer coined the phrase in The Tragedies of the Last Age Considere'd (1678)…

I can't believe they did this.Check it out! LHC Webcams

In 2008, Sam Harris posted an online survey seeking the opinions of Christians and atheists on a wide variety of topics. The real aim was to design the survey for their subsequent laboratory research…

Recently, I came across a review paper that shows a considerable amount, of progress in the last decade or so, in the understanding of the structure of liquids. That paper “The…

This Thursday, the 2010 Greener Gadgets Conference, a daylong event featuring discussions about energy efficiency, sustainable design and product manufacturing, packaging and recycling, will…

You know what I would like? An Internet camera. It would be just like the digital camera I have today: it would take pictures, compress them into JPEG files, and store them on an SD card in the…

Judge Judge Judges Judgement Today, 23 Feb 2010, a high court judge named Lord Judge has just judged the meanings of some terms used in a previous judgement in a lower court, during a pre-trial…

A Canadian research team has identified an early-life protective compensation in brain cells that have the Huntingtin gene mutation that may lead to drug treatments for Huntington's…

It's about 5.30 pm in England and the Court of Appeal in the case of the British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh has closed for the day. No official news as yet but the Singh supporters from…

Before we get to the Wagnerian bit, here is an article in today’s Telegraph: Simon Singh: it is too late for me, but libel laws must change for the public good.  This was raised earlier on…