What exactly should they do when a despised English monarch is found under a provincial car park? He wasn't buried under a car park, of course.  He was buried in a monastery, which was disbanded…

In a conversation at an expo at Duke University last week, an executive with Oracle and I discussed my new project on sustainability and synthetic biology. He curiously asked if I made monsters.…

In 2008, I was as excited as anyone about the chance to correct some public relations mistakes made by the Bush administration in the nascent years of blogging.  Obviously some of the '…

We're not that special, says new research led by the Centre for Star and Planet Formation at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. About 4.567 billion years ago, our…

Well here's an interesting development.  Mandatory labeling of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), the subject of CA Prop 37, has opened a rift between two of my favorite organizations.…

Perhaps China could use some genetically modified food.  Otherwise, meeting the food demands of 22 percent of the world's population while maintaining their over-reliance on nitrogen-based…

Medivir AB has announced plans for a phase II proof-of-concept study of an all-oral regimen for the treatment of hepatitis C containing of Medivir/Janssen's protease inhibitor simeprevir and Vertex's…

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced the initiation of a Phase 2 study of Zerenex (ferric citrate), an ferric iron-based phosphate binder drug candidate, in managing serum phosphorus and iron…

Glybera is the first gene therapy approved by regulatory authorities in the Western world. niQure announced it has received approval from the European Commission for the gene therapy Glybera(R) (…

While the goal of en enlightened society has always been food so plentiful and cheap that even poor people could afford to be fat, it hasn't been without pitfalls in the form of a looming crisis for…

Small critters tend to evolve into bigger beasts, according to paleontologist Edward Cope, what is now known as Cope's Rule. Using statistical modeling methods, a new test of this rule as it applies…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science did something that was so obvious it was a surprise to find out they hadn't already done it - they formally came out against labeling GMO…

On June 6th, ESA’s Mars Express revisited the Argyre basin, this time aiming at Nereidum Montes, some 380 km northeast of Hooke crater. The rugged terrain of Nereidum Montes marks the far northern…

Self-harm is rather common among young people but we tend to think of all self harm in modern times as elaborate cutting rituals and signs of mental illness.   Not so, many teenagers have at one…

The previous three installments of this series have covered Robert Batterman’s idea that the concept of emergence can be made more precise by the fact that emergent phenomena such as phase…

Progress in developing genomic tools has been reflected in achievements in the field of biotechnology. Some of the tools come under category of - omics – Metabolic Pathways - Systems Biology –…

If you get rich suing people, your days going after Big Tobacco are basically over. The tobacco companies have been sued for everything by now and the people who still smoke know what they are doing…

Solar systems with life-bearing planets are, so far, unique.  There is only one.  But they would be rare anyway, if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right…

Using the family tree linking every known bird species, scientists now say that birds appear to be accelerating their rate of evolution. Most people did not predict that.  They spent five years…

A new advocacy organization devoted to food and health issues and claiming to be nonpartisan gave 50 politicians perfect 100 scores - and all 50 of them were Democrats. At the bottom of their…