Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  As frequently happens in modern times, they are not chemists.   Lefkowitz is an investigator at the Howard…

Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attacking prey caught in its web – and it dates back 100 million years.  The extraordinarily rare fossils are…

Solar cells can convert up to three-quarters of the energy contained in the Sun‘s spectrum into electricity, yet the infrared spectrum is entirely lost in standard solar cells. Around a quarter of…

Gamblers interpret near-misses as frustrating losses rather than near-wins, and that frustration stimulates the reward systems in the brain to promote continued gambling, which may contribute to…

Everyone buys toothpaste and so they come in shapes and flavors, as pastes and gels, some guard against tooth decay or protect teeth from acid attack, while others that are designed for sensitive…

 Biotechnology is not all about foods only. There is much more in store for future of mankind. Even if we may or may not like Agricultural Biotechnology which  is estimated to be $6…

Researchers have identified a key factor responsible for declining muscle repair during aging, and discovered how to halt the process in mice - using a common drug.  The findings are early-stage…

Well, kind of. David Wineland and Serge Haroche have not endangered any living beings. That is to say: probably not in their physics experiments.  Yet, although they stayed at a safe distance…

Bumbling coverage on phthalates underscores how activist journalism endangers ‘public science’ Last year, campaigning journalist Susan Freinkel noted that she wrote her anti-chemical book, Plastics:…

There may be good news for the blood donation business; the shelf life of blood has perhaps gotten longer. In a finding that runs counter to commonly held beliefs about fresh blood being better, a…

Five percent of men are affected by infertility and some new insights into sperms' swimming skills could shed light on why. In a new study, researchers have shown how a protein called RABL2 affects…

A neuroprotectant drug has been shown to protect the human brain against the damaging effects of stroke. The clinical trial was a randomized, double blind, multi-center trial that was conducted in…

Five years ago I was fascinated by an analogy used by my friend Michelangelo Mangano to explain the problem of naturalness, a crucial issue in fundamental physics, and maybe the biggest single…

To celebrate International Cephalopod Awareness Days, I decided to comb through all the cephalopod news since last October (and there's been quite a bit of it) to bring you the top ten essential…

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for – you guessed it- stem cell research. Or more specifically, “for the discovery that mature…

A recent study published in Environmental Sciences Europe has attracted attention because it documents a net increase in pesticide use on genetically engineered crops in the US.  The author,…

http://www.reason.com/news/show/134795.html  The disturbing intellectual record of Obama's science czar

“Considerable work exists to describe the functions of yeah.” explain authors Chad D. Nilep and colleague Tamara Grivičić from the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado. And there…

The small is weird. No – I do not mean supposed "quantum weirdness", which is not* about small stuff. The non-quantum behavior of the small is counterintuitive enough. Many misconceptions could be…

 Things everyone should know about real black holes in  comparison to fictional black holes.  Most importantly they don't suck things into them.    Black holes do not…