Since 2007, on too many occasions to count, I have noted that by being overwhelmingly partisan scientists in academia are putting themselves at risk. Not financially. If funding mattered, all…

I'm digging around for posts people have written on what to say/what not to say to autistic people and their family members for an episode Kathleen and I are working on for The Blogger Ladies (…

The dramatic increase in obesity over the past few decades has been tightly associated with an increase in obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Of course,…

17 percent of all sun-like stars have planets one to two times the diameter of Earth orbiting close to their host stars, according to a team of astronomers who created their estimate based on an…

For decades, the consensus among psychologists has held that a group of five personality traits - openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism - are a universal…

Female athletes are three times more likely than men to suffer anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures, one of the most common knee injuries.   Studies have found that pre-season and ongoing…

It's not as fun as the Martini Diet but more scientific than the Tapeworm Diet. A new paper says that parasitic worm infections, a major cause of disease and disability throughout much of the…

Some years ago, I was a bit mystified as to the distinction between prebiotics and probiotics.  These days, one can easily look them up on Wikipedia, and find that prebiotics are meant to…

In biology, you learned that the penicillin-producing mold fungus Penicillium chrysogenum only reproduces asexually through spores - it has been taught that way for much of the last century. But a…

I just read with interest and awe the nice article appeared today in the arxiv about the search for dark matter annihilation in the sun's core by the Baksan Underground Scintillator Telescope (BUST…

“A woodpecker is known to drum the hard woody surface of a tree at a rate of 18 to 22 times per second with a deceleration of 1200 g, yet with no sign of blackout or brain damage.” Suggesting, to…

There has been a debate on morality brewing of late over at LessWrong. As readers of this blog know, I am not particularly sympathetic to that outlet (despite the fact that two of my…

"Cash for clunkers", President Obama's 2009 Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), was hailed as a huge success by the administration and environmentalists - but it was really just another government…

Sub chases, films giant squid going to Pacific abyss Scientists from the Japan National Museum and broadcasters from NHK and the U.S. Discovery Channel , said (Monday Jan 7th) they have captured…

When anti-science eco-terrorists threatened to destroy a plot of genetically modified wheat at the government-funded Rothamsted agricultural research station in their "Take The Flour Back" campaign…

When anti-science eco-terrorists threatened to destroy a plot of genetically modified wheat at the government-funded Rothamsted agricultural research station in their "Take The Flour Back" campaign…

One of the mechanisms involved in hearing is similar to the battery in your car. How do researchers know?  They heard it in a fruit fly love song. The auditory system of the fruit fly contains a…

New research suggests that racial stereotypes and creativity have more in common than we might think. In an article published in Psychological Science, psychologists find that racial stereotyping and…

In the New York Times, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman recently made the case for a return to the 1950s. Keynes-ian economics was still in vogue and taxes were higher for the super-rich, lots…

As many of you know, I spent a fair amount of time last month engaged in debates about the wisdom of California’s Proposition 37, which would have mandated the labeling of genetically modified foods…