The fossil exposures of the Lincoln Creek Formation, southern Olympic Peninsula, near the town of Porter, Washington, 46°56'20"N, 123°18'38"W, consist of tuffaceous siltstone and…

Yes! Science is finally wiggling its way in to that sweet spot of American culture, television. Exhibit A: the Emmy nominations, announced today. I've never paid attention to this before but was…

It's the typical husband/sports fan stereotype - he uses the wedding video tape accidentally to tape some classic football game, the wife finds out years later, sleeping on couch ensues.…

In the 1980s, Michael Milken went to jail for selling "junk bonds", which were risky debt.  His crime?  Offering to absorb all of the losses if he could have half the profits.   Some…

I'm assuming most of you here have not followed the ongoing board war between ex-Scienceblogs and current Discover bloggers Chris Mooney/Sheril Kirshenbaum and current Sciencblogs tour de force PZ…

Is Big Box becoming Big Environment? Wall Street Journal reported today that Wal-Mart "is requiring manufacturers to figure out the full environmental costs of making their products, and plans to…

This almost makes up for cursing the world with Windows Vista: "Gates Puts Feynman Lectures Online Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates believes that if he had been able to watch physicist Richard Feynman…

A page of interesting thoughts and great quotes on visual thinking in science: [Feynman]: The next great era of awakening of human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the…

It is pretty safe to say that if the world of the dinosaurs were played out in the school yard, Pachycephalkosaurus, would definitely have been at the lowest end of the pecking order.

Just a short anecdote today, as I'm suffering from mind erasure.  There's a rich history of ragging on management, ranging from Dilbert to The Daily WTF.  As a card-carrying contrarian, I…

Many of you may know who lived at 112 Mercer Street, from 1936 until his death in 1955. The man and I were our for a lovely walk and some delicious frozen yogurt in Princeton Sunday afternoon (just a…

Fossil crabs, several dozen species of mulluscs including the elusive tusk shell have been found in the fossil exposures of the Lincoln Creek Formation, southern Olympic Peninsula, near the…

In the past several months I have been intellectually consumed with theidea of academic blogging and its potential to one day change the faceof academic communication.  I say "one day" because…

The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, "Here is a picture of some people…

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, who blog at Discover, have a new book out called Unscientific America.   We got a copy here but I asked them to send it to Dr. Mike White, author of…

This is my observation. Intelligent people are a minority.    There is an abundance of businesses, causes, and charities that are addressing problems. Addressing and milking them for every…

A good video laying out how climate scientists think: There are problems that attract a different kind of thinker: really complex problems such as the human body, or an individual cell, or the…

(This is the first in what I anticipate to be a series of three essays on moral inquiry. The second will be a survey of some traditional themes and their contemporary applications, and the third will…

I can relate to what Isis is saying When I first told a more senior colleague what I was up to, he told me, "Isis, I don't care if you are building model trains in your spare time and then blowing…

OK, I agree lectures aren't the best format, but Google and Wikipedia aren't a substitute: The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is…