When I was a lad, we were taught that carbon had two allotropes, graphite and diamond.  Although they’re both covalently connected, in neither of these is there anything that one would regard as…

The unyielding siltstone of the Callovian Mysterious Creek Formation. A few hours of collecting yield multiple bivalves, ammonites, including what looks to be two new species. Amongst the best…

Two hundred million years ago, Washington was two large islands, bits of continent on the move westward, eventually bumping up against the North American continent and calling it home. Even with…

Vancouver has a spectacular mix of mountains, lowlands all wrapped lovingly by our deep blue Pacific. When we look to the North Shore, the backdrop is made more spectacular by the Coast Mountains…

Among environmental activists and their supporters, the use of genetic modification is a bad thing.   Obviously, tomatoes would be the size of our thumbs if our ancestors did not genetically…

A curious tale! Not least because the writer has no compunctions about referring to squid as fish. While the group "fish" is by no means taxonomically rigorous, and comprises creatures as diverse as…

A traditional Chinese extract from the bark of the magnolia tree, an ancient genus that goes back some 95-million years, gives you fresh breath by killing off the nasty oral microbes that cause…

A traditional Chinese extract from the bark of the magnolia tree, an ancient genus that goes back some 95-million years, gives you fresh breath by killing off the nasty oral microbes that cause…

A traditional Chinese extract from the bark of the magnolia tree, an ancient genus that goes back some 95-million years, gives you fresh breath by killing off the nasty oral microbes that cause…

A study just published in the journal Nature by researchers in France, Portugal and Spain looks for the first time at the effects of climate change on the tree of life (that aggregates species…

Some of the most naturally appealing stories in the autism world (and our wider world) are those stories that reinforce the myth of the self-made man (a concept I coincidentally taught this week in…

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I'm Back - With an Apology I have been absent from science20.com for some time due to illness.  I apologize for not reponding to the many comments and emails I have received in my absence. I was…

A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct.    Assange later said to send him to a…

A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct.    Assange later said to send him to a…

Climate change is permanent change in climatic conditions of a region generally associated with altered rainfall, agricultural pattern, temperature conditions, droughts, floods, snow or high heat or…

CLICK HERE for some pictures showing how giant African pouched rats are being used to detect land mines and tuberculosis in Tanzania and Mozambique. Their noses are very sensitive to TNT, and they…

A preliminary study in JAMA (JAMA. 2011;305[8]808-814.) has found that 50-minute cell phone use was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism, a marker of brain activity, in the region…

I am back from attending the February-scheduled ongoings of the International Year of Chemistry, IYC 2011, as all the chemists and chemical educators are preparing the usual science stuff--------…

Does anybody remember that film, Mission to Mars? Its a good one. Basically, this band of astronauts tootle off to Mars to find their buddy, against all odds find him and, moreover, find that he…