My wife and I once saw a rainbow and we discussed how it happened. She listened somewhat patiently for the first few sentences and then told me I was spoiling the magic of the rainbow, like it was…

A new non-deformed energy storage phase change material (PCM) can retain and release heat according to specific temperature requirements - a breakthrough that might make a significant difference to…

The future of networking may mean streaming high-definition movies at blazing fast speeds and the routers are the lights in the room. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications,…

Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like…

What do you get when you mix Mad Men styling, IKEA how-to, and NASA high tech?  In an incredibly terse 1 minute and 28 seconds, with no sound needed, NASA asks "So, You Want to Build a Satellite…

"Particle Accelerators Full of Spin and Fury, Signifying Something" Standard stuff written well. I particularly liked the end: After some 70 trillion collisions, the Large Hadron Collider has seen no…

What is Bedwetting? The medical name for not being able to control urination is Enuresis (pronounced: en-yuh-ree-sis). It is sometimes also called involuntary urination. Nocturnal enuresis is…

Do you remember the dijet mass bump found by CDF in W plus jets events ? That signal, whose significance exceeded four standard deviations, had everybody around go crazy for a while. Theoretical…

Millions of people are suffering from back pain, making it a major continuous source of physical discomfort for many. Normally, each vertebra in the spine is cushioned by intervertebral discs (see…

My work on gravity received a fatal blow in the Spring of 2007. A patient, creative exploration in the neighborhood of a deep truth might find an alternative expression to dodge the bullet that…

It is always disappointing to see agendas being rationalized by what passes for "research".  A good example occurs in this article examining the impact of smoke-free laws in rural or urban…

Arctic Ice August 2011 In the days of sailing ships and the early days of steam, even into the early years of the 20th century, much of the Arctic remained inaccessible due to the extensive pack ice…

The hormone oxytocin may be the "cuddle chemical" but recent research has found that oxytocin can promote negative emotions too. Salespeople love oxytocin - they think if they spray it on customers…

Molecules of oxygen have been found in the nearby Orion star-forming complex, the first undisputed detection of oxygen molecules in space.   Previous missions looking for the molecular variety,…

Some stereotypes are self-reinforcing.   If someone tells you over and over that you are oppressed, if you hit an obstacle and fail, like all of us do at some point in our lives, a convenient…

With an oil issue that is pinching us on two fronts, cost and pollution, alternative energy research is going fuel speed ahead, including on solutions that have tried and failed in the past, like…

Came across this video of comedian Louis CK on Letterman, where he argues that we should add lions as selection pressure on human beings. In his words:    “I think human beings are still…

In both biology and economy, game-theory models are used to understand human behavior, mainly concerning cooperation. These models usually incorporate gains, benefits, and reciprocity. And this…

As with everything, my insatiable curiosity leads me to adventures.  This past week I went on a hike to one of the remote areas of Trinity River Audubon Center to view a pond that I hadn't seen…

Two theories that have been making the biological rounds have been group selection which argued for evolution and selection operating "for the good of the group" and the "selfish gene" which argued…