Although genetic sequencing sounded exciting - I'll send you a tube full of spit, you tell me what diseases I'm going to get - the reality was less thrilling, and less useful. There are diseases with…

In two weeks I will be talking at TEDx Flanders, in the magnificent theatre of the Flemish Opera of Antwerp, Belgium. I can't wait, of course, and I have prepared a presentation which is hopefully…

A terrific scene in "Star Wars" - when "Star Wars" universe was still good(1) - was the double sunset on Tatooine.  It wasn't the first time it was done but the graphics in "Star Wars" were…

Here’s a question for your buddies at the next golf outing or bowling league night: Are we more active because we drink more or do we drink more because we’re more active? Recent research showed that…

Politicians throw out a lot of anecdotes, especially if it is one told by a constituent or potential voter, so Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann throwing forth a story told to her that the HPV vaccine…

A giant crococile versus a giant snake in a Colombian coal mine? It sounds even more awesome than "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus", except the real life version does not have Debbie Gibson. An…

A research team at John Hopkins Medical Institutions has introduced synthetic chromosomes into yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, see figure 1), in an effort to better understand how genomes work, and…

A study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs says what you already knew - if you get drunk and pass out, you are more likely to die in a fire you could easily have escaped, if you weren't…

A study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs says what you already knew - if you get drunk and pass out, you are more likely to die in a fire you could easily have escaped, if you weren't…

I must have missed that section in the What to Expect books on how to react when your child comes home from school with a Ziploc bag filled with squid parts in his backpack. Thus begins an…

In 1997, Ray Stanford, a citizen scientist dinosaur tracker who often spent time looking for fossils close to his Maryland home, was searching a creek bed after an extensive flood and discovered a…

Walter Bonatti died yesterday at 81 years of age. One of Italy's greatest "old style" climbers, Bonatti is especially famous for the first ascent to the K2, the extremely hard to climb, 8611-meter…

Sometimes, when things are bad enough, we'll cave in and buy into concepts and products that we otherwise wouldn't have. As one example, hurt bad enough and you'll try just about anything to ease…

Squid news has been kind of slow lately, but I hate leaving this blog empty! (The frequency with which it is meant to be updated is, after all, given away in the title.) So here are a couple of…

A 3-D inkjet printer can generate 3-dimensional solids from a wide variety of materials very quickly by applying the material in layers of defined shape and then bonding these layers are with UV…

I've talked about how our Project Calliope picosatellite will burn up entirely upon reentry.  Larger stuff, not so easy.  UT reports in the cutely titled "Look Out Below!" that the 6-ton…

I enjoyed a lot reading a "discussion" prepared by Maury Goodman on the value of "confidence level", discovery thresholds, and what physicists believe or not. If you are a HEP physicist and you want…

Does playing music lead to less age-related hearing problems or do people without hearing problems continue to play music? Hearing studies have shown that trained musicians have highly developed…

www.sciencecheerleader.com, an organization started by the dynamic and committed citizen scientist Darlene Cavalier, has a noble goal. It wants to demonstrate to young girls that it’s OK to be…

Sex determination is obviously an important developmental event with great ecological and evolutionary consequences. A large variety of sex determination mechanisms exists, and the evolution of many…