In 2010, when Dr. Paul Muizelaar of U.C. Davis began performing illegal experimental treatments on terminally ill brain cancer patients, he earned over $800,000. (1) That's pretty good money for…

 "Bioethanol, Biobutanol, Biodiesel, Vegetable oils, Biomethanol, Pyrolysis oils, Biogas, Biohydrogen. Biodiesel: Technically, Mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable…

I am spending my vacations in the beautiful island of Leukada, in the Ionian sea. Consequently, my posting rate here has dropped significantly in the last few days. I will return in August; in the…

Today, scientists are extremely careful in making sure they cite others’ works, if not for ethical reasons because plagiarism destroys reputations and is potentially a career ender. However, in the…

The Los Angeles Times got a little Huffington Post-ish in an article July 17th about Oxitec's genetically modified mosquito to control dengue outbreaks in various poor countries - and perhaps even in…

If you believe that disparity between male and female salaries is sexism or at least gender bias, well, you may have a point.   There's no doubt that, outside single women and men, there is a…

Organic food has terrific marketing. Despite being mega-corporations in a multi-billion dollar business, they have convinced their customers they are all small and unique and wholesome; kind of like…

When I received the message from Frau Christian Plachta an associate  at the Institute   yesterday “Pflanzenernährung mitgeteilt, dass Herr Konrad Mengel am 12.07.2012 im Alter von 82…

Since the unicellular creature, going through the evolution of the living organisms, until the recently ones, with complex and different kind of neurons, the nervous system has had only one purpose;…

Last year I wrote about somewhat silly claims that Wikipedia must be sexist because it had poor female representation. Wikipedia is an open, voluntary community, I argued, some people are just not…

 In a number of scenarios of the global food and agriculture system in 2030, we examine to what extent increases in livestock and crop productivity, and changes in human diets, may expand the…

Global climate change has stimulated efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. Photosynthetic organisms use solar energy to generate reducing equivalents and incorporate atmospheric CO2 into organic molecules…

"Given that the search for the Higgs took some 45 years, tens of thousands of scientists and engineers, billions of dollars, not to mention numerous divorces, huge amounts of sleep deprivation, tens…

According to Grossman and Loeb (2010),“the variation in teacher preparation pathways can propel understanding of how best to prepare teachers.” (p.22). Using this premise, I was able to synthesize…

Has LHC observed "the" Higgs boson or do we have to deal with something more exotic? After the seminar held on July the 4th at Cern, many online newspapers have published titles reporting the…

I cannot resist stealing the picture below, courtesy "IoNonFaccioNiente", the blog of Paolo Valente. Some context for foreigners is needed: the Italian government, in a rather untimely and shocking…

Issues of “mind uploading” and “machine intelligence” have been in the tech. news of the futurist variety lately which got me thinking about these concepts and led me to write this blog post on the…

A small parasitic crustacean blood feeder that infests certain fish that inhabit the coral reefs of the shallow eastern Caribbean is the absolute perfect species to name for a pleasant Jamaican…

The best stuff is found in Scotland. And by 'best' I mean weirdest, like haggis, caber-tossing and 3,000-year-old mummies that turn out to be Frankenstein monsters. Well, at least we know the ancient…

I realize I owe an apology to my ATLAS colleagues. In a post-Higgs-announcement article where I was listing some random "post-mortem" considerations, I wrote a paragraph which could be read as an…