This week's friday fossil is Mesolimulus. Although it's admittedly very pretty, Mesolimulus is actually a friday fossil because, if you were to wander along the Northwest Atlantic coast, you be…

A new finding may mean that nearly all leukemia and lymphoma patients in need of a transplant can find donors. Results of two clinical trials show transplant results with half-matched bone marrow or…

Sometimes a person who gets drunk can perform functions their friends might regard as ordinary, like carrying on a conversation or driving a car - but the drunkard might have no memory of those…

Parents are always looking for new treatments to help their children with autism; it can be daunting to keep up with the multitude of new therapies constantly popping up on the internet, many with…

Last week, the United Nations added 18 sites around the globe to its list of biosphere reserves, bringing the total number of sites so designated under its Man and the Biosphere Program to 581. Most…

For a long while now, having watched bubbles form and pop, I have found it frustrating how people pile into assets with straight line trajectories.  I first noticed it in the time of the dot-com…

Came across this nice video that explains how the Northern light forms, made by Per Byhring and the physics department of the University of Oslo. In it, it is explained how solar storms trigger…

I'm always a bit disappointed with myself when I find out that there's been a space mission that I didn't know about. But I was really annoyed with myself for not keeping up with MESSENGER (a…

This instance of my "guess the plot" contest will be hopefully raising fewer controversies than the former one. You are asked to explain what the figure represents, possibly guessing the units on the…

It's totally a thing! The vast majority of squid caught off the west coast of the Americas, both North and South, is shipped to the other side of the Pacific Ocean to be processed in Asia. Much of it…

More bizarre news out of Florida. What do you think this has in common with this? If you answered, "they both look really disturbing," then I can't disagree. But the more pertinent answer is that…

I confess. I am a stem cell scientist.I might even be an evil scientist because you see my lab works with human embryonic stem cells. Hopefully even if I am an evil scientist, I am not an evil…

A Democratic president banned the use of federal money for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, a Republican president restricted federal hESC funding to existing lines and a Democratic…

This just to report progress on the Quantum Randi Challenge. It has changed a lot, so please have a look to see whether you think it is now attractive enough for you to help “internetizing” it, which…

In the criticisms of American education, it is often noted that Asian children perform better on standardized tests that seek to measure knowledge across cultures so American schools last decade ago…

In the criticisms of American education, it is often noted that Asian children perform better on standardized tests that seek to measure knowledge across cultures so American schools last decade ago…

For over 20 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been tasked with pooling and making publicly accessible the knowledge gleaned from climate-change research. Its efforts…

For over 20 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been tasked with pooling and making publicly accessible the knowledge gleaned from climate-change research. Its efforts…

The naked mole rat (or Heterocephalus glaber) (see figure 1) is a strange mammal. As their name already implies, they have little hair. Furthermore, their eyes are very small and their visual…

Check out this ice cream manufacturer in Aberdeenshire which is entirely carbon neutral - it produces 10 million quarts of ice cream per year andthe factory is completely powered by the wind. Mackie'…