There is no evidence that Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel had faked any data for his Ph.D. work, just evidence he had faked a whole lot since.  Still, a panel recommended The…

There is no evidence that Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel had faked any data for his Ph.D. work, just evidence he had faked a whole lot since.  Still, a panel recommended The…

Red blood cells regenerate every four months but the lining of the intestine regenerates itself every few days. The cells that help humans absorb food are constantly being produced and the various…

The last few years have seen a real spike in end-of-the-world conspiracy theories.  Why?  More asteroids, more flares, more earthquakes?  No, just more Internet to talk about them,…

Sometimes you have to take a chance; President Obama has decided to 'reassess' the Keystone XL pipeline project, which is really just a way to delay it until after the 2012 election. Cost; over 100,…

Sometimes you have to take a chance; President Obama has decided to 'reassess' the Keystone XL pipeline project, which is really just a way to delay it until after the 2012 election. Cost; over 100,…

In 2011, science has been confronted with several high profile awkward situations of having to explain why standard methods like classical significance analysis are acceptable in for example medical…

If you've ever thought you were being abducted by an alien or, if you are 400 years old, seduced by a succubus, and couldn't move, you are not alone.   A new article in Sleep Medicine Reviews…

The moon has no global magnetic field yet  Apollo astronauts found magnetized rocks on the lunar surface. A new hypothesis proposes a mechanism that could have generated a magnetic field on the…

Anecdotes are not data, the saying goes, but people sure believe them.  An article in JAMA says doctors should consider the use of narrative, patient stories and testimonials, to boost public…

Eco-friendly water bottles, hybrid vehicles, eco-clothes, wearable computing are only a few examples of how science and fashion have been going hand-in-hand over the past decade. A new item was added…

It’s going to be a big day tomorrow when the Oregon football team comes to town.  This year, we meet the team that handed us our only loss last season – but on our own turf.  And although…

If you are of a certain age, perhaps your parents told you to eat slowly. They may have said something about better digestion but if you were one of many poor people it also had to do with feeling…

Some folks in Britain want to spend 10 years and millions of dollars to build a computer that goes really, really slow - and I think it's a great idea. I partly think it's a great idea because it is…

This post is the first of a new series I plan to write, on the techniques used to study and monitor volcanoes.  The reason science is the best method we have of investigating the world around us…

Scientists have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed just after the Big Bang and it matches the composition made by predictions, which adds to direct evidence in support of the…

(That's glue made by squids, not glue made from squids. Don't be mean.)Yesterday I explained that the little pygmy squid Idiosepius' glue gland produces two different oozes, and so it must be…

"If we were not ignorant there would be no probability, there could only be certainty. But our ignorance cannot be absolute, for then there would be no longer any probability at all. Thus the…

In his recent article Should We Trust Scientists?, Paolo Ciafaloni wrote: The words I chose in my articles might seem simple, and possibly they are. But I think they reveal something of the…

As we reach old age, our bodies undergo several changes. And not for the better. More and more people are beginning to wonder whether we can do something about this. A lot of research is going on to…