Instead of letting them mess around on the Wii or, worse, watching a "Baby Einstein" video, the way to make kids of all ages and incomes smarter could be as simple as handing them a few blocks.…

Streamers may be great for decorating a child's party, but in dielectrics they are the primary origin of electric breakdown and can cause catastrophic damage to electrical equipment, harm the…

Since I retired three years ago, I have been becoming almost as sessile as a sea squirt, sitting in front of my computer, reading not just news but comment and what people are thinking about things.…

This is part 3 of my series on Mars, planet of surprises, great to explore, not so great to colonize. So this might be a good time to take a breather and review what we've found out so far. Mars…

Mars looks quite hospitable in the photos, but all is not quite as it seems. Our Earth based intuitions lead us astray, and the planet is full of surprises. Though great to explore, it might not be…

Last week, National Geographic's website ran an article that claims that while e-cigarettes are effective for weaning smokers off of traditional tobacco products, they may pose health risks…

Last week, National Geographic's website ran an article that claims that while e-cigarettes are effective for weaning smokers off of traditional tobacco products, they may pose health risks…

This paper reviews recent studies and particularly the effects of Climate Change in the North Tropical Atlantic by studying atmospheric conditions that prevailed in 2005 ; Coral Bleaching HotSpot and…

Unless you are in a bar and have a bartender with a pour spout (in other words, a terrible bar), pouring a glass of wine is not an exact measurement. And at a private party or in someone's house, a '…

After 12 weeks of strength training, people over the age of 90 improved not only their strength, power and muscle mass, but also showed  an improvement in their balance, their walking speed and…

A little-used class of FDA-approved antidepressants appears potentially effective in combating a particularly deadly form of lung cancer, according to a new study from researchers at the Stanford…

The bottom of the deep ocean is not the most hospitable place in the world, but it is not devoid of life either. Scientists have recently documented that oxygen is disappearing from seawater…

UPDATE: Just found out that Peter Woit anticipated me on this - see his blog entry.--- Just five years ago, on the eve of the start of the Large Hadron Collider, most particle physicists -…

An ordinary No. 2 pencil contains graphite (from the Greek γράφω, graphō which means "to write" or "to draw").  Graphite conducts electricity and you can use your pencil and a piece of…

To translate one language into another, find the linear transformation that maps one to the other. Simple, if you are part of an elite team of Google engineers. A new translation technique being…

To translate one language into another, find the linear transformation that maps one to the other. Simple, if you are part of an elite team of Google engineers. A new translation technique being…

Previous research into genetic variants has shown that dancers really are different than most people and a new neuroscience study sheds some light on ballet brains as well. Differences in the brain…

Native small mammals on forest islands created by a large hydroelectric reservoir in Thailand faced extinction and a new paper says species living in rainforest fragments could be far more likely to…

The first rock that scientists analyzed on Mars with a pair of chemical instruments aboard the Curiosity rover turned out to be a doozy – a pyramid-shaped volcanic rock called a "mugearite" that is…

The first scoop of soil analyzed by the analytical suite in the belly of NASA's Curiosity rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight.…