It's easy to hate the government.  It's a faceless bureaucracy that can easily grind you down to nothing if you are on the wrong side of it.   But there are higher orders of contempt…

The role of spirituality and religion in individuals' lives has been studied since the beginning of modern psychology. It's not been a consistent examination, nor always a useful one, but…

Yoda, a 14-year old female dog of mixed breed (chihuahua and Chinese crested dog) has won the World's Ugliest Dog competition, held in Northern California. Abandoned behind an apartment building, the…

Why do nations rise and fall?   Historians and anthropologists can usually make an educated hypothesis but some instances are nothing more than guesses.   Here are 10 that disappeared and…

Why do nations rise and fall?   Historians and anthropologists can usually make an educated hypothesis but some instances are nothing more than guesses.   Here are 10 that disappeared and…

How could I miss it - and you did too. A very comprehensive article on standardization as a way to reduce environmental pollution has appeared here, and has almost gone unnoticed. I think it is worth…

Who says sharks can't be fun?   Jacob Langston knows they can.  He works for the Orlando Sentinel and was shooting some footage but didn't notice this spinner shark until he heard another…

Who says sharks can't be fun?   Jacob Langston knows they can.  He works for the Orlando Sentinel and was shooting some footage but didn't notice this spinner shark until he heard another…

 How many famlies have more electronic devices than people? It's not hard to be swimming in a digital sea in today's culture. Americans appear to worship the latest upgrade, willing to wait…

Songbirds have been used in the past to examine the precursor functions to human language in our neural circuitry, but they may be capable of much more than being animal models.  A new study…

The common refrain when climate science detractors point out the flaws in numerical models is that, if no one is sure of the accuracy, the risks are being exaggerated. It could be the opposite.…

A fairly new method in genetic research, known as optogenetics (selected as Method of the Year in 2010 by Nature Methods, see video for a great explanation), uses light to control gene expression.…

Writing in Media Psychology, Markus Appel discusses a study where 63 Austrian college students who read a short about someone stupid then did worse on a test than a control group - they became more…

Writing in Media Psychology, Markus Appel discusses a study where 63 Austrian college students who read a short about someone stupid then did worse on a test than a control group - they became more…

It's rare that you will find me arguing for gender quotas.   Obviously I am not for discrimination but, at least in science, mandating representation - which is discrimination against the…

This recent Nature article makes people jump up and down in classical, non-quantum jumps as we speak: “Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system”. There are plenty of misleading…

Conservatives, who generally agree on the value of individual freedom, want the government to limit marijuana.   Progressives, who generally agree on the value of big government, don't want the…

Marc Kuchner built the Facebook group 'Marketing for Scientists' to help drag the usually reticent science population into this century's culture of social media and the rise of the individual.…

Now we come to the second part of the series Botany: A Blooming History entitled 2. Photosynthesis Why have I skipped part 1B?  There is madness in this method, or vice-versa, because parts 1B…

Those who have been following my blogs, may have noticed that I develop certain patterns, which I then use to 'think through' certain issues or habits in science, or other intellectual endeavours.…