The strangest idea for a reality TV show that I've heard to date comes courtesy of Slashdot this morning. "Terminal illness got you down? Does your future seems bleak? Channel 4 and production…

To start off 2010, we're invited to join a new “Hot Topics” feature, which will periodically focus the bloggers on a particular topic. The first Hot Topic is this: The Upcoming Decade in Science…

"The threat is much stronger than its execution" Aaron Nimzovich (complaining to the arbiter of a chess match that his opponent had put a cigar in his mouth, after the arbiter had pointed out that…

 Exciting news just in from Oxford University. A previously obscure lecturer in cinematography has published a book titled The Selfish Dot, in which the author challenges the established view…

As someone that has little use for government, I find myself in the awkward position of actually defending it when I hear the utter nonsense put forth by people suggesting that the private sector can…

This article is about physics but it fits under random thoughts also. My writing here on Scientific Blogging is self-educational, about what I am wondering and learning about. Today, it's multiverse…

Zanthoxylum armatum DC. syn. Z. alatum Roxb. and its var.planispinum (Sieb. & Zucc.) Rehd. & E. H. Wils.; Z. planispinum Sieb. & Zucc.) ( I agree with Dr. Komatsu that Z. armatum and Z…

Phragmites karka Trin. ex Steud. ( Syn  P. karka Retz. , P. roxburghii(Kunth)   Steud.; P. maxima Blatter&McCann in part. Gramineae    Root …

Scientific Name Entada phaseoloides (Linn.) Merr. syn. E. scandens Benth. (Ref no.9 page 59 names this as E.pursaetha DC and puts E. scandens Benth.) Family Fabaceae Used Part Fruits.…

Scientific Name Vanda tessellata (Roxb.) Hook ex Don (=V.roxburghii R.BR.) Family Orchidaceaae Used Part Root. Distribution Area An epiphytic orchid, 30-60 cm. high, found from Uttar Pradesh…

    Fundamental Theoretical Physics contains sequences of theories, each of which is explained by previous ones by rules of the classical logic. For example, optics is absorbed by the…

As if taken by a spell, my joking claim to be on strike in the last post grew to become one of the longest streaks of absence from blogging of the last few months, for a series of irrelevant reasons…

It's conventional thinking that the recent years, in which affective mental illnesses such as depression have been routinely considered alongside non-mental ("physiological") illness, instead of as a…

If you are unsure what a buzzword is, please first read:The Buzzword Blog #2 : What is a Buzzword? The Buzzword Blog #6 : CustomerThe word 'customer' comes via old French from the Latin consuetudinem…

The annual AAAS conference is being held next month in San Diego and I went last year (here and here and here) , despite it being a Chicago February, but most of you did not, thus the reason for the…

Connecting my earlier post on PhD job realities and Melissa's blog post on Entitlement Culture is today's Ph.D comic (by Jorge Cham): Alex, the Daytime Astronomer Tues and Fri here, via RSS feed, and…

Brad DeLong picks up on some nonsense in Businessweek: Kevin "Dow 36000" Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute calls for the USAF to bomb both France and Switzerland, hoping to get the…

Global Cooling: A Good Story, If Only It Were True. According to Daily Mail reports of 10th and 11th January 2010, we are now entering a phase of global cooling.  However, there is an old saying…

Richard Fortey reviews The Genesis Enigma in The Times Literary Supplement: The reader will search in vain for a reference to Jean-André de Luc (1727–1817) in this eccentric book by Andrew Parker.…

Science is inextricably interwoven with cosmology, with theology, with epistemology, with ethics, politics, and psychology, all of them crucial to exploration into the human condition. A cosmology…