In the East Scotia Ridge deep beneath the Southern Ocean, hydrothermal vents including 'black smokers' reaching temperatures of up to 382 degrees Celsius have created a unique environment that lacks…

Update: I have modified the title of this post [originally: "Opera's Statistical Booboo"] and the text below (in places I marked accordingly) upon realizing, thanks to a very good point raised by a…

If someone talks about WikiLeaks and admires transparency and accountability but talks about ClimateGate and talks about how the emails were illegally obtained and stresses the researchers were…

The first Circus of the Spineless of 2012 is up at Wild About Ants! Check it out for some very doable new year resolution suggestions. (Like "get to know tiny spiders"--we can all do with a little…

The more I read on this topic, the less confident I get. If you wish to read a solid technical explanation, I recommend a reply by David Simmons-Duffin sent to me by Henry. It all comes down to…

In this century, I believe that Physics will enter into an another remarkable area of basic understanding which we can not discover yet. No, I am not saying about the experimental facts of CERN or…

National Institute of Standards and Technology theoretical physicist James Baker-Jarvis died in a Colorado hospital after a 3-foot tree branch came through his auto windshield and impaled him…

National Institute of Standards and Technology theoretical physicist James Baker-Jarvis died in a Colorado hospital after a 3-foot tree branch came through his auto windshield and impaled him…

Courses, speeches, and client meetings take me to faraway places, sometimes on short notice. Here are some hard-won tips about this kind of traveling. Google "packing lists" to find advice on how to…

As some of you are aware, I am a fan of the writings of G.K.Chesterton. In 1903, in an essay The Return of the Angels, he came out with this surprising statement: Of the thousands of brilliant and…

Two recent studies are providing a foundation for a more complete understanding of distinct kidney cancer subtypes, which could pave the way for better treatments. In a study published in Cancer Cell…

Casual games with squid in them are the new hotness. No, I'm totally serious. There was Halloween Squid, Squibble, Squids, and now, Squid Drop: What a delightful excuse to talk about squid science!…

Occupy Hilbert Space is a quirky event proposed by a Facebook friend of mine.   A Hilbert space is a formal mathematical construct in which the information about a physical system is represented…

A blog is by nature a place where things move on fast. Articles disappear beyond the horizon in the matter of a week or two, and only rarely get resuscitated by a later article linking them back from…

One nice features of Science 2.0 is the way it links to Science Codex and Real Clear Science.  The latter of these sometimes directs me to a journal called The Atlantic, in which I read What…

This December the National Transportation Safety Board of the U.S. recommended a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving. According to NTSB member Robert Sumwalt, "This (distracted driving) is…

Was Galileo wrong? The answer is no. Then what is special in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity(STR)? The answer is that in STR , we know about the kinematics of high speed objects. In a…

Carl Zimmer always has interesting insights on both science and the state of science. As a respected writer with a broad base he is going to survive anything that happens in the future of science…

Carl Zimmer always has interesting insights on both science and the state of science. As a respected writer with a broad base he is going to survive anything that happens in the future of science…

The inaugural season of intercollegiate football took place in 1869. It consisted of two games: Rutgers played Princeton, and then a week later, they played again. Each team won once, so the “…