Facial hair can be a status symbol - as Sikh women say, they know their men have a full motor under the hood - but does it protect against sun damage, as commonly believed? The sun's most harmful…

Organoids, those laboratory-created tissue structures designed to mimic human organ functions, are now getting into your head. Last year, researchers created kidney organoids from embryonic kidney…

I don't know enough math to know if this has been precisely defined but I know enough about my ignorance of math to know that if there is such a definition I probably won't understand it.  …

The infrastructure vulnerability to the climate change is increasing around the world and its implications are evident in many sectors. Settlement patterns, urbanization, and changes in…

Rep. Randy Hultren(R) and Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D - but not the anti-science crackpot one, that one is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) have introduced House Resolution 276, which would recognize the last…

A few days ago, I was watching an episode of the Antiques Roadshow.  People were bringing their treasured objects for expert examination to the grounds of a stately house in St Ives,…

Applying the laws of men to murky facts is almost as hard as determining the laws of nature.   In science we have clear experimental and observational data and tease out the laws of science.…

Humanitarian research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is geared toward various projects, among them saving millions of children from death and blindness due to Vitamin A…

12.00 A study released on Monday found a link between induced or augmented labor, that is, the use of Pitocin, and autism. Women whose doctors decided to begin labor by administering Pitocin, an…

Mars is a fascinating planet, the most like Earth of all the planets in the solar system, and may help us to understand much about the origins of life on Earth. Undoubtedly, it's a wonderful place to…

Chipotle, the burrito restaurant chain, served more than 120 million pounds of beef, pork and chicken last year.  It now has a problem - sales continue to go up. Its "never ever" policy…

I like the idea of "Shark Week" but I confess I am more of a reader than a television viewer. Still, when Discovery Channel whacked me as part of their "Shark Week" promotional campaign a few years…

I haven't been on this site in a while, and in looking at a past article it strikes me that some of my previously posted views have changed. (Congratulations, right?) Normally, this is the kind of…

The word zoonoses…. seeing that on my screen makes me wonder how many of us giggle at the idea of zoo noses. You know, like an elephant’s trunk or the orangutan’s smooshed up nose? But zoonoses doesn…

How do you demonize scientists who added 3 genes to the 30,000 in rice in order to stop vitamin A deficiencies in poor countries with rice-dominated diets? There are zero pitfalls to it yet an…

A recent article suggested that many of the buttons/toggles that we experience in our daily lives don't actually do anything, but that simply reinforce an expectation and foster a superstition. The…

Pizza may be symptomatic of many First World problems: 50% of Europe is overweight or obese and there is concern about hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke or certain cancers linked to nutrition. So…

Music is an ancient and important expression of human creativity, and is an intrinsic part of culture. It can be argued that creative expression is what makes our species unique among those on earth…

Most mammals aren't monogamous, nor are most anything except birds, where it happens in about 90% of cases.  It's actually quite rare in mammals (5%), so why did it evolve? Was it to be better…

The Dolomites are a mountain range in north-eastern Italy. They take their name from the mineral called dolomite, a carbonate rock which gives these mountains a characteristic pale pink colour,…