Astronomers have discovered a pulsar at the center of our Milky Way and this magnetar -  a pulsar with extremely high magnetic fields of the order of 100 million (108) Tesla, about 1,000 times…

'Family annihilators', where the male parent murders the family, are most prevalent in August. That doesn't mean much, it is too rare a crime to have a lot of data and when there are 12 months in the…

There is no evidence that impaired blood flow or blockage in the veins of the neck or head is involved in multiple sclerosis, according to a new paper in an open access journal. The finding…

Difficulty in registering and responding to facial expressions is a characteristic of autism and somr functional imaging studies claim that individuals with autism, and its very wide modern spectrum…

I recently examined (and found wanting) the so-called computational theory of mind, albeit in the context of a broader post about the difference between scientific theories and what I think are best…

Finasteride, a generic drug used by physicians to treat enlarged prostate and male pattern baldness, was found to significantly reduce the risk of prostate cancer. During the trial of 19,000 men, a…

Mars is a fascinating planet, the most like Earth of all the planets in the solar system, and may help us to understand much about the origins of life on Earth. Undoubtedly, it's a wonderful place to…

Some of the ancient civilizations that flourished in regions of the Eastern Mediterranean - Aegean, Egyptian, Syro-Palestinian, and Hittite civilizations - collapsed during the late Bronze Age. …

When it comes to what's for dinner – or breakfast and lunch for that matter - too many people suffer from chemophobia, an irrational fear of chemicals that pose no risk to our health. Chemistry…

Physicists have successfully teleported information in a solid state system for the first time - they moved information from A to B for the first time in an electronic circuit, similar to a computer…

The Earth has periodic ice ages - every 100,000 years, give or take, and the ice ages last far longer than the warm periods. In the last century, scientists determined that Earth's ice ages were…

Chipotle, the burrito restaurant chain, served more than 120 million pounds of beef, pork and chicken last year.  It now has a problem - sales continue to go up. Its "never ever" policy…

Which strategies give players an edge at winning in multi-player real-time strategy games like Warcraft III/ Defense of the Ancients or Starcraft II? An analysis technique by North Carolina State…

Cleaner drinking water with fewer chemicals may be made possible using ... bacteria. A research team studied four bacteria, Sphingobium, Xenophilus, Methylobacterium and Rhodococcus, found in a city…

For as much as the War of the Roses has been over-analyzed and documented, you'd think researchers would know where the Battle of Bosworth, which brought the Plantagenet King of England Richard III…

Zoos have used water moats to confine chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans. When apes ventured into deep water, they often drowned, which indicated that apes could not learn to swim and so prefer to…

Light traveling in a vacuum is the ultimate speed demon, moving at about 700 million miles per hour. Matter cannot exceed the speed of light - unless, perhaps, there is a speed bump in light's path.…

It's not right for cobia not to be carnivorous but researchers in Baltimore have scientifically modified these fish so that they no longer occupy their usual place in nature's circle of life: they…

Readers of this blog are familiar with my criticism of some scientists or scientific practices, from evolutionary psychology to claims concerning the supernatural. But, especially given my dual…

In the previous installment of this longish article, I have introduced some of the issues that may affect the correct interpretation of a statistically significant effect. Below is the second part,…