The quest for evidence of life on Mars could be more complicated than previously thought due to  perchlorate,, a salt comprised of chlorine and oxygen, that interferes with the techniques used…

NASA's Curiosity Rover has sampled a surprising diversity of soils and sediments along a half-kilometer route during its first few months on Mars. And what it has found tells a complex story about…

The EPA's war on science and business is nothing new. What started four decades ago as an honest effort by the Nixon administration to protect the environment from an increasingly industrialized…

Reports of a new hepatitis virus earlier this year were a false alarm, according to U.C. San Francisco researchers who correctly identified the virus as a contaminant present in a type of glassware…

 IGR J18245-2452, located about 18,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius in a cluster of stars known as M28, is a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform…

I have reported about the studies of resonances in the decays of the B+ meson by CDF, CMS, and LHCb a few times in the recent past. The situation, in a nutshell, was the following until yesterday:…

I am 99.9% sure that there will never be commercial production of genetically engineered wine grapes ("GMO" to use the common misnomer). Even so, I'd like to indulge in imagining what could be if we…

New methods are needed to fight the infection Clostridium difficile and better use of antibiotics could be key, according to a new paper. Clostridium difficile (C.diff) causes severe diarrhoea,…

Earlier studies have suggested that omega-3 fatty acids,  found in fatty fish such as salmon and in nuts, benefit thinking skills. A new paper in Neurology, based on a study that involved 2…

The discovery of what may be the earliest known creature with what can be discerned as a face has been reported in Nature. Entelognathus primordialis is an exceptionally well-preserved 419-million-…

If history always felt a little made up and you wished there were more sharply-defined quantitative predictions that could be tested empirically, you are in luck. A new mathematical method has done…

In the world of academia, the number of citations an article receives means money at grant review time, and that means career success. However, with the emergence of new article metrics, researchers…

In the world of academia, the number of citations an article receives means money at grant review time, and that means career success. However, with the emergence of new article metrics, researchers…

Raytheon Company is recognizing 32 teachers from 18 states as "Math Heroes" for their work promoting student enthusiasm and achievement in math.  Each Math Hero receives a $2,500 award and a…

The "green seed problem" is a long-standing issue that causes millions of dollars annually in canola crop losses for Canada. Canola is the major cash crop in Alberta, which produces about…

A review panel has concluded that the mass stranding of approximately 100 melon-headed whales in the Loza Lagoon system in northwest Madagascar in 2008 was primarily triggered by acoustic stimuli - a…

 Akawaio penak,  a previously unknown genus of thin, eel-like electric fish, was discovered in the shallow, murky waters of the upper Mazaruni River is northern Guyana. University of…

While America has drastically reduced its greenhouse gas emissions - CO2 from energy is back at early 1990s levels and emissions from coal are back at early 1980s levels - that isn't good enough for…

If you began to travel to the star nearest to us after ol' Sol, named Alpha Centauri, it takes about four light years.   Now imagine there were instead 10,000 other stars crammed into that 25…

In my last article, "Does Earth Share Microbes With Mars Via Meteorites - Or Are They Interestingly Different For Life?" I talked about the NRC study, which looked at the same meteorite data as…