The nearby star system Fomalhaut has been discovered to be not just a double star, as astronomers had thought, but a really wide triple star -   a previously known smaller star in its vicinity…

There's little quantifiable value to arts and literature but they hold a great deal more prestige in culture than science does. If you attend a Manhattan dinner party and are unfamiliar with some…

The biggest threat to vaccine acceptance is not distrust of science, misinformation campaigns or deficit thinking among the public, but rather the failure of government and institutions to use…

If you want to enjoy your food, stop taking pictures of it and putting them on the Internet, say marketing scholars. They mean you, foodies on Instagram and Pinterest. It could be ruining your…

I've often argued that California's biggest industry is hypocrisy - not just talking about freedom and liberalism while banning conduct elites happen not to like this year or reconfiguring voting…

Supposing we do eventually decide to terraform Mars, and know how to do it, will it be possible at all if humans visit the surface of Mars first? Could aerobes and other microbes introduced by…

Resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine, remains effective at fighting cancer even after the body's metabolism has converted it into other compounds, according to a new paper in Science…

It bugs me a little when 'time' is randomly called a dimension in casual talk. Since just after Einstein's relativity, we've been treated to the mathematical idea that time is its own dimension -…

This is part 3 of my series on Mars, planet of surprises, great to explore, not so great to colonize. In "Is it as good a place to live as a desert? we saw that Mars is a more inhospitable place…

Transgendered androphilic males may have been accepted in ancient hunter-gatherer cultures because they were an extra set of hands to support their families, according to a new article in Human…

Nocturnal animals use their noses to stay alive. Mice, among others, depend on their impressive olfactory powers to sniff out food or avoid danger in the dark, using a streamlined system that sends…

A tuberculosis vaccine developed at McMaster University published phase one clinical study results today.  Tuberculosis is a serious public health threat. One-third of world's population is…

Nearly one in three American children are overweight or obese, but sugary sweets are often on the menu at elementary school classroom parties.  Previous small-scale studies have found that "kids…

This is part 3 of my series on Mars, planet of surprises, great to explore, not so great to colonize. In "Is it as good a place to live as a desert? we saw that Mars is a more inhospitable place…

The great angiosperm radiation of the mid-Cretaceous, the dramatic explosion of flowering plant species that occurred about 100 million years ago, is thought to have been good news for evolving…

Risky sexual behavior and substance abuse have always orbited HIV but it isn't just shared needles; drugs like cocaine make people engage in lots of other risky behaviors. The epidemiology of…

Industry has made efforts to reuse or to transport shale gas wastewater to deep injection wells, but wastewater is still discharged into the environment, after being treated, in some states.  In…

Where is 'sea level' and how far above sea level is a particular place located?  Quite a lot of things may go wrong in bridge building and the inhabitants of the German and the Swiss parts of…

Researchers have managed to measure the internal pressure that enables the herpes virus to infect cells in the human body, a discovery which paves the way for the development of new medicines to…

Just a small post to mention the recent activity in my Greek blog, where with the help of a very kind Greek student we are offering a selection of articles translated in Greek language. Here are the…