Why have public displays of piano playing become so compelling? At railway stations, shopping centres and airports, an instrument usually associated with concert halls bursts into everyday life. In…

When a devastating heat wave, hurricane, flood or wildfire strikes, people often want to know: How much did human-caused climate change influence this event, if at all? For many years, scientists…

Understanding which brain circuits respond to weight loss medications and how they behave could lead to better weight loss with fewer side effects. A new study (in mice, so only EXPLORATORY) found…

In 53 B.C., a member of Rome's First Triumverate, Marcus Licinius Crassus, wanted to show himself the equal of fellow rulers Caesar And Pompey. Both those generals were spectacular in the field and…

Friends of the Earth was famously started by an anti-nuclear activist who believed his employer, Sierra Club, did not hate science enough. You read that right. Sierra Club, founded by a rabid…

The good news for Americans is that wages have outpaced costs since the Clinton years. The bad news is quality of life is far worse due to things government micromanages, like healthcare.(1) Thanks…

Regression toward the mean is a simple phenomenon commonly described in Statistics 101 courses. If you measure a parameter describing some phenomenon, you will find that extreme measured values tend…

After President Bill Clinton ordered his US Department of Agriculture to make a government "organic" marketing designation for products that used older pesticides and genetic engineering, the…

Peptides occupy a productive middle ground in drug discovery. Built from short chains of amino acids, they are large enough to recognize complex biological surfaces with high affinity and selectivity…

Anthropologists tell us that only a handful of human experiences can be found in all human cultures. Among them is the experience of friendship. It might have different expressions in different times…

Wildfire smoke has been pouring across the U.S. border from fires in Canada again, turning skies an eerie shade of orange in several states in July 2026. In the West, smoke has also been spreading…

Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed…

If you are not currently smoking marijuana, do not start. It is a carcinogen, no different than cigarettes and alcohol. Most people recognize its effects on the brain are so broad it is about as safe…

Artificial Intelligence will probably be remembered as the least well-defined technological advancement of humankind. Ever since the two words were reportedly put together in a sentence - and we know…

In the 1980s, scientists captured the precise mechanics of a protein machine. It looked strange, to researchers its tall thin structure with stubby legs invoked the enchanted broomstick that stole…

[As a meta-text, this blog column contains a large number of posts written over the years, that describe new results from physics analyses, among other articles commenting on news in science and…

A new paper has correlated birth control pills to binge eating. In 100 percent of controlled clinical studies, more energy consumed than burned causes weight increase, which means birth control pills…

Female farm managers are hidden in plain sight in ancient Roman texts, mentioned in laws, literature and grave inscriptions across five centuries. Modern historians have generally assumed they were…

After decades of public safety campaigns focused on drinking and driving, it may be time to focus on the seventh leading cause of injury-related death, according to Bureau of Occupational Health and…

If you had a way to save the world and the NIH refused to fund it, could it ever happen? What if both Science and Nature, which claim to be the most prominent journals in the world, refused to…