If you are flying an airplane and detect an unusual odor in a confined space 5 miles up in the air, what can it be? Burritos for lunch?    Not this time. The foul smell with traces of…

On Friday evening I will be talking in the wonderful Piazza Mantegna, in downtown Mantova (see picture below). It is an event organized by Festivaletteratura (literature festival), where I will be…

Hurricane Isaac may have disappointed the news networks and the federal government - it was declared a state-of-emergency before the first rain drop fell and Sean Penn was not roaming the streets of…

Soil bacteria and bacteria that cause human diseases have recently swapped at least seven antibiotic-resistance genes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St.…

It used to be that a species name was only official if it was printed in a journal - and the print was quite literal, it had to be a print journal. Why do zoologists hate trees?  They don't any…

I've been feeling a bit inspired about our prospects in space, lately.  Foremost (of course) by the incredible competence displayed by the makers of the Curiosity probe that landed on Mars, last…

There is a Chinese middle class for the first time ever and they have decided to avoid their numerous conventional food scares by opting for organic food scares. To-date, it is has been entirely…

During London Olympics 2012, Google Knowledge Graph (Ref. 1)  proved to be very useful in knowing about various aspects of the games like player statistics, medal tally of countries, etc.…

The physicist John Archibald Wheeler wrote in 1984: “...the most revolutionary discovery in science is yet to come! And come, not by questioning the quantum, but by uncovering that utterly simple…

“Ears are a particularly appealing approach to noncontact biometrics because they are relatively constant over a person’s life and are unaffected by expressions, unlike faces.” - explain researchers…

There was an interesting study published recently that addresses the changes that occur to gut bacteria in pregnant women and the role this fulfills in maintaining a healthy pregnancy. There are two…

Coming into the Democratic convention, science academia is going to be enthusiastic in its support of President Obama.  Unlike counterparts in private-sector science, academia will vote up to 85…

During a recent American political convention, two networks carried real-time Twitter 'data', what they called a meter, based on the commentary on the social media service.  While election polls…

For every "treatment" or remediation in autism-land, there are both fervent believers and detractors. For every person helped, there's another harmed. Perhaps, just perhaps, in some cases, it's not…

According to WHO, "Although it is a vaccine-preventable disease, rabies still poses a significant public health problem in many countries in Asia and Africa where 95% of human deaths occur even…

Large collaborations of physicists have a consolidated habit of meeting three or four times per year for a full week of discussions and talks. This has multiple purposes, one of them being the…

Obesity is not just happening in New York City 7-Elevens(1), it is also happening in aging bones. Bone marrow stem cells, which are adult stem cells, are in their fifth decade of uncontroversial new…

An 8.6 magnitude earthquake occurred 62 miles off the coast of Sumatra on April 11th, 2012.  Along with being severe by any measure, in one way it was the largest earthquake in observed human…

A new ATLAS search for supersymmetric signatures in 2011 LHC data has appeared last week in the arxiv. The result ? No hint of a signal, not even for ready money. So if you are on a hurry, you can…

esverlogix Corp. today announced that the BET protein inhibitor RVX-208 significantly increased HDL-C (p=0.001), the primary endpoint of the SUSTAIN trial, a phase 2b clinical study. SUSTAIN also…