Researchers are reporting the construction of what they term "artificial molecules" and say they can use the technology to engineer a new generation of nanomaterials that control and direct the…

This video has become quite popular in the past month. Chances are you've already seen it. If so, my apologies, but it's just too funny.Here's a quick summary for you: cat barks, cat sees owner, cat…

   Tomorrow, that is.  On July 12th, 2011, Neptune will have completed exactly one orbit around the Sun since it was discovered on September 23rd, 1846.  So,  Happy Birthday…

The Many Worlds Wiener Sausage is the first step in understanding the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox. However, there are still three steps missing until we can resolve the EPR paradox…

While other sources (voluntarily not linked here, to avoid pissing off my collaborators) choose to be "on the news" these days, with a brand new exclusion plot of the Higgs boson obtained using…

The Columbian Mammoth, the official state fossil of Washington, crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America some one million years ago and made a home roaming the vast grasslands that…

Much of the island of Crete is Miocene and filled with fossil mollusks, bivalves, gastropods who lived 5 to 23 million years ago in warm, tropical seas. They are easily collected from their pink…

Maybe Nosferatu was a good name for this cat after all. He loves to leap at our legs, clamp on with his front claws and start chomping. Same for our arms. Cujo the cat would have been a good name,…

Sex is costly. Yet it is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, so there must be some advantages to it. And still, it seems easier to list disadvantages. Sexual reproduction is complicated,…

I stumbled upon the song “Conquistador” today and was stunned by the parallels between Procol Harum’s lyrical references to the Vietnam War and current US military actions. How many decisive…

This short story is about a surprising effect: you put something on the web without much advertising for it - and it might find perhaps more users than if you publish it in a traditional Journal.…

History Mysteries #2 - The Sawdust Coast According to Peter Freuchen, writing of his travels in Siberia, circa 1936,  the tundra coast near Tiksi in the Lena Delta was fringed with logs and the…

Mabel and Shermer It took me a while to find this photo in my stream of thousands of photos because it's more than a month old. I've been reading Michael Shermer's latest book The Believing…

Once upon a time, tool use was considered to be a uniquely human feature, setting us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. But, when Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees using sticks to ‘fish’ for…

“I am going Nuts” introduced a misunderstood little gem, the Nutmeg, and expounded a little on its preparation. Pure myristicine without safrole, elemicin, and likely unknown ones inside nutmeg,…

Life is hard when you're cutting edge.  Coming up with a good topic and title for a Science 2.0 article is not easy.  Today I tried to conceive of a unique and insightful piece about a…

Just as struggling calculus students wonder if they will ever actually use their new proof-finding skills in real life, developing athletes may be curious if their endless practice drills will ever…

I've long said that what NASA needs is not a James Webb Space Telescope but an actual James Webb for the 21st century. Webb, if you are not familiar with NASA lore, was a bold leader rather than a…

In a letter to Nature, Mark Ptashne, Oliver Hobert, and Eric Davidson question an editorial that appeared in the journal (Nature). The editorial, focused on the International Human Epigenome…

Apparently, the female ancestor of present-day polar bears was a brown bear, living in what presently corresponds to Ireland. An international research team has used mitochondrial DNA (see figure 1)…