The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is officially 50 years old today and this morning, for the first time ever, observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope were made of an object chosen by the…

"A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest." W. Churchill

Are you a probiotic manufacturer who has become annoyed you are not allowed to market microbes that can help cultivate “intestinal flora” for consumers? Did the European Food Safety Authority tell…

Sometimes when I add a cool link, I want to make it funnier, or more prescient.  Sometimes the weird vibe of a writer straining for edgy legitimacy just stands on its own.  So, Science 2.0…

Sometimes when I add a cool link, I want to make it funnier, or more prescient.  Sometimes the weird vibe of a writer straining for edgy legitimacy just stands on its own.  So, Science 2.0…

Duck-billed dinosaurs, also known as hadrosaurids, had an amazing capacity to chew tough and abrasive plants with grinding teeth more complex than those of cows, horses, and other modern grazers.…

Black holes may not be so dangerous to stars after all. The discovery of a star named S0-102 may help reveal whether Albert Einstein was right in his fundamental prediction of how black holes warp…

Don't have room in your stomach for 36 eggs but you really want those equivalent calories in one delicious treat?  Head to The Cheesecake Factory with me and get their French Toast Napoleon…

Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman - a laureate in economics but a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, has thrown the gauntlet down to one group of psychologists to restore the…

Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman - a laureate in economics but a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, has thrown the gauntlet down to one group of psychologists to restore the…

Serial killers and recidivist criminals of all kinds lack empathy.  So do some people with poor social skills. A compassion-based meditation program called Cognitively-Based Compassion…

A skull fragment unearthed in Tanzania verifies that our ancient ancestors were eating meat at least 1,500,000 years ago and that can tell us something about the evolution of human physiology and…

In my previous article, the fundamental equivalence of foods was discussed recognizing that there is a difference in assessing problems with the food, versus problems with food handling. …

Leaves store carbon. In the spring, leaves soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting the gas into organic carbon compounds, and then in the autumn, trees shed those leaves, which…

Russian feminist punk-rock (and, if we are being honest with each other, not very good) band Pussy Riot's 15 minutes of anti-religion fame may be about up.  Russia has turned its social…

Russian feminist punk-rock (and, if we are being honest with each other, not very good) band Pussy Riot's 15 minutes of anti-religion fame may be about up.  Russia has turned its social…

A couple of weeks ago ago, a debate about the existence of scavenging cephalopods broke out on the cephalopod mailing list. A few days later, such a creature appeared in the news as if conjured! A…

The Greenland ice sheet has a tale to tell about ancient greenhouse gas emissions too. Researchers have determined how much methane originates from natural sources and how much is due to human…

Thinking of some amazing organisms in a sandy beach, the sand bubbler crab always comes in mind. Dotilla clepsydrodactylus, the sand bubbler crab, is the one crab which makes the beaches more…

A 45-year meta-analysis of 240 science studies found that 'organic' processed food is the same in pesticides, the same in nutrition and a whole lot more expensive. "...there isn’t much…