This is a pretty crazy story! Japanese planes spotted a fishing vessel engaged in illegal drift net fishing off the coast of Alaska, and the US Coast Guard boarded it. The offending vessel was not…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office wants you to rethink underwear - but be revolutionary, not evolutionary. They like saying that before they give all the…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office wants you to rethink underwear - but be revolutionary, not evolutionary. They like saying that before they give all the…

Just a link you cannot miss: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/tevatron/milestones/interactive-timeline.html

I'm nostalgic tonight. The reason ? The Tevatron has finally stopped running, for good. It's strange to find out one can mourn the shutdown of a synchrotron just as the passing away of an old friend,…

After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, I had a few isolated concerns about his true science colors; he had issued creepy vaccine-autism statements, his transition team was stuffed with people…

Question: Quick, what is the fastest way to make the term "false equivalence" appear? Answer: Contend that whatever side of the political spectrum the person you are talking to is on is more anti…

Watching almost any episode of FX's Sons of Anarchy, you can’t help but notice that Jax, the young biker protagonist, is a bit of a stud. There's always some vixen falling for his patched, …

The more centralized the power, the easier corruption becomes.  Hu Zhicheng, a Chinese-born American scientist who returned to China to bring some entrepreneurship to the Communist world…

The more centralized the power, the easier corruption becomes.  Hu Zhicheng, a Chinese-born American scientist who returned to China to bring some entrepreneurship to the Communist world…

With scientific research becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, many researchers find themselves dealing with issues they are not prepared for. A good example of this is how biologists in several…

In claims about math performance among females, and the sociological implication that unknown  cultural pressure in schools made the mentally malleable fairer sex believe they couldn't do math…

Imagine if a journalist sent their story to former Republican Vice-President Dick Cheney to 'check the facts' - what would the outcry sound like from other journalists and the public? Yet it turns…

Not yet official, but safe enough to be announced here: prof. Fernando Ferroni is the new INFN president. The charge will need to be confirmed by the Minister of Instruction and Research, Mariastella…

Although I went on record that the reportedly faster than light neutrinos from CERN to OPERA will likely go away as mere systematic error, and although my very own resolution of the EPR paradox…

Nothing says science like a beetle humping a beer bottle - and it earned Professors Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz a coveted Ig Nobel prize. If you have been living under the science equivalent of a…

Today I get a free pass on my blog, because an article I wrote about giant squid came out at Miller-McCune.com. Conservation efforts often rally around charismatic species like the African elephant…

Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr., better known as Connie Mack, once said that pitching is 75 percent of baseball.  He was speaking from experience, not data, and looks can be deceiving, as people who…

A recent study fed rats homobrassinolide, found in the mustard plant, which produced an anabolic effect, and increased appetite and muscle mass, as well as the number and size of muscle fibers.…

Efforts have long been underway to make the Système Internationale d'unités (SI Units) more accurate. If you know your science history, SI units were devised during the French Revolution as an…