A few photos from around the world of cities that participated in Earth Hour 2009.Nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries took part in an effort to call attention to climate change. The event,…

An open Letter to the World's Leaders Honorable Leaders, As our climate continues to change due to our extravagant use of fossil fuels, new sources of those fuels are being discovered in the Arctic…

Recently, walking through the grounds of HASYLAB at the German Synchrotron DESY (we are NOT a Daisy!) I was reminded of my favourite book on radio, namely The Science of Radio, by Paul J. Nahin (ISBN…

Intelligence Made SimplePart #1 of 2 What is Intelligence? I intend to show how intelligence is best understood by getting well away from ideas based on human intelligence. I shall work from humans…

I'm kicking myself for not linking to Judith Weingarten's blog post, Time Gazing at the Pantheon in Rome yesterday. It's good explanation of how the Emperor could have used the Pantheon and it's…

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30 PM in each time zone around the world, lights will be dimmed for Earth Hour 2009. San Francisco joins World Wildlife Fund and 2,848 cities, seven times more than last…

Scientists from Sweden’s Uppsala University have pieced together a bizarre marine predator who trolled the seas some 505-million years ago. Hurdia, an extinct species of anomalocaridid, had a giant…

A couple of years back I read a theory in Charles Pellegrino's book "Ghosts of Vesuvius" that has fascinated me since, that the Biblical story of Cain and Abel is an echo of the genocide of…

Part 1, which begins our examination of the question 'what is time?' can be viewed here.Part 2 Some travels through time. This is a slightly whimsical interlude, presented as a break from the 'hard'…

Some fun with microscopes and fluorescent proteins: in the image below, you can watch what brewer's yeast does with its DNA as it reproduces itself. This is the microbe that ferments your beer and…

Can a TV show about disease management educate people who don't take their meds? Or does it just help sell expensive gadgets to motivated patients who are already doing better than most?…

May I pass on to you all the following link to an article Do these mysterious stones mark the site of Garden of Eden? which refers to archeological disoveries at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. …

It is commonly held that if floating ice melts, then it makes no difference to sea levels. This is true only of free-floating ice. When a sheet of ice is attached to  land, basic principles of…

Note:The ideas developed here were prompted by my reading a recent blog.Thank you Becky Jungbauer. What you are reading is a mix of whimsy, ethics and philosophy applied to a problem in politics.…

It was bound to happen - stink-free underwear. And naturally, it was developed by women. Textile experts at Japan Women's University in Tokyo developed J-ware, a a line of odor-free underwear…

The Texas Board of Education is voting this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, according to the Wall Street Journal. The proposed curriculum…

What is Pragmatics? This is a very brief introduction to pragmatics, intended to whet your appetite and encourage you to want to know more. Pragmatic investigations cover the fields of both…

In this study, I will propose, that the relationship between Mind and Vision can enable us to draw certain conclusions relevant to one aspect of what constitutes the Mind, and therefrom, we may seek…

Discover jumped into science blogging on a national scale last year when they hired the awesome Phil Plait, our favorite Bad Astronomer, to be their anchor and then boosted their credibility when…

Rejoice, swimsuit-wearing masses - New Jersey officials decided to scrap plans to ban brazilian bikini waxes in the state. The initial idea for a ban on genital waxing was proposed by the…