Let me write here a short note -just for the record- to mention a proceedings paper I wrote for the ICFP 2012 conference. I spoke in Crete last June about the latest results of the CMS experiment,…

Advanced sensors that monitor extreme pressure and temperature in underground caverns used to store carbon dioxide might be on their way. CO2 emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels has…

Last time we examined Robert Batterman’s idea that the concept of emergence can be made  more precise by the fact that emergent phenomena such as phase transitions can be described by models…

Does the nearby star Fomalhaut host a massive exoplanet? It depends on who you ask.  A new paper says that the planet, named Fomalhaut b, is a rare and possibly unique object that is completely…

Researchers have successfully created a human heart cell model of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), an inherited heart muscle disorder that puts carriers at high risk of…

1.8 million years ago, giant German hippopotamuses wallowed on the banks of the Elbe. Hippos were all over Europe then, along with other megafauna like woolly mammoths and giant cave bears.  …

Decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, one third of political prisoners of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) still suffer from…

In the African savannah can reach 149° Fahrenheit in the middle of the day, which leads to burning sand and an obvious problem for anything that lives there,  including small insects that spend…

Want to hear the world's first blooper? You can, along with the oldest recording of an American voice and the first-ever recording of a musical performance. It is now digital, not on tinfoil. …

Want to hear the world's first blooper? You can, along with the oldest recording of an American voice and the first-ever recording of a musical performance. It is now digital, not on tinfoil. …

   Getting on for 50 years ago, I remember reading about growing giant onions for competitions, the five-pound onion being the equivalent of the four-minute mile.  Growers would have…

When is a theory not a theory?  When no one can even agree on what the theory is and competing ones are disproved once a year. Astronomers disagree about why they see more light in the universe…

When visitors arrive at Edmonton International Airport in Alberta, Canada, they are greeted by a 1,440 square foot living wall; a “green wall” arranged like a modern art canvas with 8,000 plants…

Which do you love more, organic food or green energy?  Because you may have to choose. Oregon is the site of a conflict between food and energy, though it is a state that claims it loves both -…

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/honda-electric-car-gets-118-mpg--but-costs-a... At 118 miles per gallon, the Honda Fit electric vehicle is the most fuel-efficient in the United States. But getting that…

The coelacanth has one of the longest lineages, 400 million years, of any animal and is the closest living fish to all vertebrates alive on land. Now it has a new member. Pieces of tiny fossil skull…

Researchers have discovered bacteria that transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away. The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few thousandths of a millimeter long, are so tiny that…

  An advocate for gene-centrism recently wrote that the concept is a reductive mechanism for the understanding of evolution. The first part of that statement is correct; it is reductive, and is…

Some believe in the power of telepathy. Some believe in the power of fMRI. And putting the two together led a team of experimenters from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, and…

Human thought has led to a variety of remarkable and profound insights. Many of these insights are well established and have been embraced by a significant portion of the global population. The…