The highest jump ever made was by Joseph Kittinger in 1960--31 km. This year, astronaut Felix Baumgartner will attempt a 36 km jump, and there is talk about Michael Fournier attempting a 40 km jump.…

Oh yeah, and my adivsor was totally on NPR yesterday, check it out. In terms of press coverage, we are so lucky that we work with charismatic, edible megafauna.

The opening sentence of Wikipedia's article on the man seems fairly encompassing: Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was a writer, public speaker, philosopher, psychonaut,…

Rhubarb May, Or May Not, Fight Cancer Current news reports about cancer-fighting chemicals in rhubarb may lead some people to think that eating a lot of rhubarb is a good idea.  Bad move! …

It's now almost Midnight in Moscow, so it's already tomorrow in China.  Therefore may I take this opportunity to wish all readers of Scientific Blogging . . .

Blackboard qualitative proofs of the "existence" of, say, an equilibrium between demand and supply - beloved of economists trained in the maths of the department of mathematics rather than the maths…

Energy Policy Should Maximize Benefits of All Renewable Biomass February 12th, 2010 The new rule announced by EPA last week implementing the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) takes a major step…

When I was undergraduate student in 1963 the Bharatpur Kevladev Bird Sanctuary, Bhartpur was a reed swap stage ecological formation where some level of water stayed all around the year. Then came one…

Science spectrum hard->soft: Math->Physics(->Chemistry->Biology->Medicine->Psychology->Sociology) ->Modeling->Philosophy->Opinions @skyday **************AlexEvery Friday…

Renowned Indian Agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Wednesday commended the Indian government's decision to defer the cultivation of the genetically modified (GM) egg plant, Bt brinjal in the…

I was off to a very important discussion on the next day. As usual, there were butterflies in my stomach wondering on how my story would be accepted by my critics, my dearest students. Ever since I…

Get your mouse-clicking fingers ready, everybody - time to vote on your favorite NYC condom wrapper design! Five finalists were selected from nearly 600 entries, and the winning image will be the…

Have you ever pondered public radio fund drives? Whether you’ve supported the station or not (I do), the drive persists; they keep asking for money the whole, dreary week. If you pay on the first day…

Of Snakes And Oil A headnote explaining the need for the footnotesThe author not wishing to superimpose an overabundance or superfluity of operose terms, has subpended copious footnotes for the…

Some Gems Of Comment Spam We get a few spam comments here, promoting all sorts of rubbish web sites. Currently, we seem to be targeted by people who want to do our writing for us.  Now, given…

Wondering if the "natural" cleaning product you're using is really all that natural? Well, soon you won't have to wonder - the Natural Products Association (NPA) released a set of guidelines today…

There are known effects of Promoters used in expression of foreign DNA incorporated into the stranger host of choice but unknown effects of promoters used are not known. A promoter is used for the…

During the middle Eocene, 45-50 m.y.a., a number of freshwater lakes appeared in an arc extending from Smithers, through the modern Cariboo, to Kamloops, the Nicola Valley, Princeton, and Republic,…

Yesterday a press release about a new interstellar medium map that has been published (PDF) in Astronomy and Astrophysics caught my eye. A French-American team of astronomers, combining…

This afternoon I am leaving to Belgium. I have been invited by the Université Catholique de Louvain to give a seminar on the status and the future of the Higgs boson searches at the Tevatron collider…