As Feynman told the story in late 1959: We have friends in other fields---in biology, for instance. We physicists often look at them and say, "You know the reason you fellows are making so little…

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The job of experimental particle physicist is strongly correlated with worldwide travel. Paid for and self-inflicted, sure. But not exactly always pleasant, nor to exotic destinations. In fact,…

Continuing along on my previous theme (having cleared my soul of the rant on etic viewpoints of cyberculture), many studies I've seen fail to convince the "internet native" because of a number of…

Mothers Rock! The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Blessings on the hand of women!Angels guard its strength and grace,In the palace, cottage, hovel,Oh, no matter where the place;Would that never storms…

I don't qualify for the original exploratory study - I'm not 55+ or at high risk for heart disease - but I'm crossing my fingers that the initial results are promising so they go ahead with a planned…

Will we ever have a set of standardized biochemical devices that synthetic biologists can snap together to make more complex systems? I'm skeptical that any single standardized biological device will…

According to The Scientist,  Merck paid Elsevier to publish Merck's own "peer-reviewed" fan-zine, Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, in 2003.  Its articles don't show up in…

This has been a slow news day.  On such days, my mind tends to drift somewhat.  Combining the science of linguistics with the philosophical notion of multiple parallel universes leads to…

This morning I signed a contract with INFN, the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, which grants me tenure in the role of research scientist. Start date: 05/04/2009. End of penalty: never. Am I…

A recent find has archaeologists and pet-lovers equally excited. How much do you love your little Fido? Enough to wrap him in linen and take him with you?  I'm not thinking summer vacation here…

Who are your all time favourite childrens' authors? Dr. Seuss, Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Adolf Hitler? Warning: satire alert!Adolf Hitler - World's Best-Selling Children's…

So you wanna be an astrophysicist? Try this route! Leave a well-paying NASA job to get a Ph.D. Begin studying solar CMEs ... while the sun is at solar minimum. Assessing how the web is kicking…

A new report on the freedom of press has been released today by freedomhouse.org. Freedom House is an independent, non-profit organization created in 1941 to monitor and defend the freedom of press…

The Far Side is a great source for science-related humor, of course - and Josh will figure out Scott Adams' take on evolution using only Dilbert strips, I'm sure of it - but for those looking to…

Worried about how to protect yourself from swine flu (oops, Influenza A H1N1 - stop persecuting pigs!) ? Wondering what you can do to prevent spreading swine flu?  Need an up-to-the-moment…

As long-time readers know, we like to celebrate various holidays and events by making subtle changes to the site.    Sure, sometimes it involve ninjas taking over and writing our science…

What is a Fudge Factor ? It is a most unfortunate fact that, however beautiful a theory is, the data plots just don't want to fit the nicely drawn curve.  It is a problem in all fields of…

2008 was a horrible year for the Large Hadron Collider. Just nine days after an extremely successful, highly publicized start-up on September 10th, when hundreds of reporters gathered at CERN to…

The number of species who can dance - actually get down, shake their groove thing, etc - has jumped from one (humans) to three. The other two? Parrots and elephants. Unlike other animals, according…