So much sound and fury over the Higgs Boson, signifying what? A complete understanding of the fundamental constituents of the world in which we live? Of the universe of which we are an integral part…

Cancer cells are, well, cancer cells; cells that grow uncontrollably in the host, and ignore all patterns and signals that govern the structural integrity of tissue and organs. Much research in the…

For Thursday's contribution to Evelyn's photo meme, I present the Isle of Skye. Skye was perhaps my favourite field trip of my undergrad.  We stayed in cabins out in the middle of nowhere, by…

The human brain is very good — quite excellent, really — at finding patterns. We delight in puzzles that involve pattern recognition... consider word-search puzzles, the “Where’s Waldo” stuff, and…

Slow Food's Michele Rumiz has posted a ruminative piece about squid fishing on Unije, a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea: Every November, the island calls its aficionados to fish squid (called…

Slow Food's Michele Rumiz has posted a ruminative piece about squid fishing on Unije, a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea: Every November, the island calls its aficionados to fish squid (called…

Squids are mercurial, unpredictable creatures of extremes. Call them abundant, call them quite rareIt depends on the climate--the sea and the airOne species expands, another contractsThese are the…

Quantum physics describes a universe that is profoundly mysterious. Einstein, arguably the most revolutionary thinker of modern times, struggled greatly with quantum theory. This groundbreaking new…

Day three of Evelyn's geophoto a day, and today we are in Greece. This photo was taken early one winters day as we were preparing to head out into the field.  At first glance, the geology in…

At Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP, Ken Regan tackles what the statistical nuance of 'evidence' means in the latest Higgs disclosure, delving into statistics and social convention in a hard science…

At Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP, Ken Regan tackles what the statistical nuance of 'evidence' means in the latest Higgs disclosure, delving into statistics and social convention in a hard science…

If a crime occurs, asking the criminal what happened is unlikely to give you the most accurate picture of events.  This is why police interview the victim first.    So an evolutionary…

Plants are capable of synthesizing anoverwhelming variety of low-molecular-weight organic compounds, termed“secondary metabolites”, usually with very unique and complex structures. Theyrepresent one…

Eilam Gross is a professor of Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science of Rehovot, Israel, and a distinguished member of the ATLAS collaboration. That makes him a competitor, since I work for the…

It isn't just Americans concerned about science, though Europeans seem a little dramatic about it.   Currently, America can only employ 16% of its Ph.D.s in academia, what most academics regard…

A recent article suggests that our fear of snakes is largely genetic because of its apparently uniform nature across all strata of people and that it was likely caused due to predation of our…

Firm evidence for the discovery of a Higgs particle has now been officially announced. This means the "Higgs ether" exists. But did not Einstein tell us that there is no ether? Poor Albert is getting…

Day two of Evelyn Mervine's photo meme, and today I have a picture of Ngauruhoe, New Zealand.  Ngauruhoe makes almost a perfect cone, broken only at the top by a small crater.  This photo…

News like today's new evidence for a standard model light* (~125 Gev) Higgs particle does much for theoretical physics.  In one fell swoop many theories can be ruled out.  While at…

Updates:- Philip Gibbs does a great job, as always, at combining -albeit approximately- the results of different experiments in the Higgs search. He now has even a full combination of LEP II +…