Fruitflies (Drosophila melanogaster) can smell the difference between hydrogen and its heavier counterpart, deuterium, according to recent research, which they say offers support for a controversial…

Fruitflies (Drosophila melanogaster) can smell the difference between hydrogen and its heavier counterpart, deuterium, according to recent research, which they say offers support for a controversial…

We all do it: we define things from our own perspective. One example I see over and over again is the idea that autism is whatever it looks like in our own kids, or own experience of it, not someone…

A nice piece of news in my mailbox today: it appears that the CMS collaboration, the experiment I work for at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, has got four different scientific papers approved for…

Despite my chronic lack of time these days, I always manage to find ten minutes for a blitz chess game on the internet. It is a total waste of time and brain energy, but it never fails to provide…

Girls in schools, wheat crops instead of poppy?  This ain't your daddy's Afghanistan.    No one believed meaningful change in Afghanistan would happen over night but, as in Japan and…

Girls in schools, wheat crops instead of poppy?  This ain't your daddy's Afghanistan.    No one believed meaningful change in Afghanistan would happen over night but, as in Japan and…

Some subjects I try to avoid in this blog. But this one seems to become increasingly difficult to escape. Since my interview at Philosophy-To-Go, I regularly get questions about the physics of free…

A new study accepted for publication in Chemical Geology says deep saline groundwaters in South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin may have remained isolated for perhaps millions of years. The…

One of the fairly common things out of the "pro-safe" vaccine crowd insists is that there's inadequate research on vaccines. What better way to look at how information has grown over time than to…

If a site like the Huffington Post takes a fair use snippet of your article here and then links to you, their snippet will rank higher in Google than your actual article in keywords related to your…

“Yesterday night I was in my office in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge packing my stuff, resolved to not go back to research again …” This sad story is another warning to…

We'd like to believe the political blogosphere, and certainly the political populace, has confrontational overtones science does not, but who are we kidding?   If you get on the wrong side of a…

Ran into this ironic juxtaposition of 2 webcomics, released at nearly the same time.  Which to share?  They negate each other. vs AlexTuesdays at The Satellite Diaries and Friday at The…

I've been tracking the Illex argentinus fishery for a while now--remember 2009 was the worst year ever, and while 2010 was better it was still far from a complete recovery. How's 2011 shaping up? In…

Science and religion have always been in something of a conflict.   Science seeks to explain the world according to natural laws while religion leaves larger questions as articles of faith.…

Balancing the demands of work, parenting, blogging, autism advocacy and more can at times be daunting. My mind is a whirring jumble of thoughts, pinching worries that eat away at me, and an…

Being human sucks. I mean, being a kid is quite alright. You play, you eat, your mama tucks you in at night. That is, unless you're unlucky enough to have abusive parents. Or a serious illness. Or…

If you've been to Bible study classes, you know the story of Jericho.   Actually, if you're an atheist you may know it even better, since on quizzes atheists seem to know The Bible better than…

Today I spoke at a conference on "QCD advances" which is being held in Les Houches, an amiable small town near Chamonix, on the french slopes of Mont Blanc. The content of my talk is accessible from…