A team of researchers has identified a highly promising new anti-tuberculosis compound that attacks the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium in two different ways. Although isoniazid and rifampin, two front-…

NPR has a trivia show called Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me and host Peter Sagal is surprised that they don't get Republicans on it. Well, it's a comedy program and on NPR you are only allowed to be funny…

Carbon Monoxide – dubbed “The Silent Killer” is a colourless and odourless gas – highly toxic to human beings. It’s a common pollutant in city air, coming mainly from vehicle exhaust emissions. But…

Almost no one outside New York City government and health advocates engaged in social experimentation thought a ban on some drink sizes for New York City made any sense or would actually do any good…

Fracking, which mines natural gas using horizontal, hydraulically fractured wells, is widespread across Pennsylvania, with high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF) from the Marcellus and…

Natural gas is much cleaner than coal but it's also important that its energy return on investment (EROI) - the total input energy with the energy expected to be made available to end users - is…

If you want to design new materials that are durable, lightweight and environmentally sustainable, it makes sense to look at old kinds: Natural composites, such as bone. Bone is strong and tough…

The end of the Atlantic Ocean is coming.  A new subduction zone forming off the coast of Portugal shows that a passive margin in the Atlantic ocean is becoming active and Europe could to…

The US Supreme Court recently sided with patient advocacy groups that a company cannot patent your genes.  Sounds like a pretty clear case, but the decision also creates some exceedingly…

The gap between hypothesis and observation is never more evident than efforts to figure out howblack holes produce so many high-power X-rays. Gas spiraling toward a black hole inevitably results…

The big question in many aspects of medicine is whether there is more of something or if it is simply better diagnosis than in the past. In youth baseball programs, throwing injuries seem to have…

Water in the Earth's upper mantle and crust likely plays a less important role as a lubricant of plate tectonics than previously assumed, according to a paper presented by geoscientists present in…

Not that most people were worried but the US Department of Agriculture has found that genetically modified wheat found in Oregon last month has remained in one field. Genetically engineered…

Not that most people were worried but the US Department of Agriculture has found that genetically modified wheat found in Oregon last month has remained in one field. Genetically engineered…

Do you like nuclear weapons? If you respond yes to that, I think you have lost your mind. While I understand the value of an overwhelming force to end a bloody world war, it's also something that can…

The U.S. Supreme Court just released a groundbreaking decision about the ability to patent genes – the assembly instruction for life.   Amid much discussion about potential implications for the…

Around The Arctic June 2013 The Arctic is currently primed for rapid and extensive ice loss, unless we see some very unusual weather conditions this Summer. The state of the ice can be seen in the…

Researchers affiliated with the Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland and the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Germany published a meta-study in which they conclude that…

In several posts the question of biological costs is invariably mentioned in discussing evolution.  These costs are normally of the metabolic or fitness type.  Metabolic costs are…

In the last two generations, the designation 'spiritual but not religious' has become popular. It's hard to know what it means - atheists and religious people are at least taking some sort of stand…