Sociologists love when people get shot; it gives them a chance to make correlation/causation arrows go in all kinds of crazy directions. So when people jumped on the gun rage by Jared Loughner…

When I was a lad, the science fair was a dozen schools.   The Google Science Fair has students from around the world, which means I would be unlikely to spend 3 minutes looking at the problem,…

When I was a lad, the science fair was a dozen schools.   The Google Science Fair has students from around the world, which means I would be unlikely to spend 3 minutes looking at the problem,…

Even for a physicist, this is bad: Larry Moran, in preparation for the appropriate dose of ridicule that this situation deserves, quotes physicist and pop-science author Paul Davies: Another…

Is there still gender discrimination in science?    We hear about it even today but is it a real problem or is it primarily a problem in that 'if there is even one instance it is too many'…

A new paper says that as many as 20 percent of the most distant galaxies currently detected appear brighter than they actually are, because of an effect called "strong gravitational lensing." How…

Scientists are reporting the development of a new, ultra-light form of 'frozen smoke',  the world's lightest solid material, and the new kind has amazing strength and an incredibly large surface…

... as depressing as that may be to hear. Some friends recently described their December trip to India, the first time they've visited in years. India's economy is on fire, unleashing some…

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (here is Wikipedia's handy pronunciation file) last summer was widely covered in the media, generating some stunning images (and perhaps the most beautiful video of…

Who interviewed who?  There's Scopes Monkey Choir-- the podcast interviewing me.  And there's 365 Days of Astronomy-- the podcast where I interview them.  Welcome to an irrational…

You may recognize the famous Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, whose best known work is “Pictures at an Exhibition”.  But the pictures that follow are from a totally different …

A cave inside some remote mountains of Armenia contain what is being called the oldest winery yet discovered, dating back to around 4,100 B.C., 1,000 years earlier than previous finds. The discovery…

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected beams of antimatter launched by thunderstorms, which act like enormous particle accelerators and can emit gamma-ray flashes called TGFs - and also…

Wakefield and the vaccine wars suck up the air. So much attention on one man. On hammering away at each other over whether Wakefield's the saint or Deer. Or who's the greatest sinner. There can be…

Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub. syn. B. frondosa Koenig ex Roxb. Family Fabaceae (Papilionaceae ) Used Part Fruit pieces Distribution Area It is common throughout the greater part of India,…

Let me tell you, there is a lot of crap out there about the Nasca Lines, and I do mean crap. Everything from linking them to 2012 to, of course Aliens. Surprisingly, Aliens are not the #1 explanation…

Hanny's Voorwerp, a strange, glowing green cloud of gas that has mystified astronomers since its discovery in 2007, has gotten a better look by Hubble. The cloud of gas is lit up by the bright light…

Thanks to the Tevatron Facebook account manager, R.M. (Ron, tell me if I can disclose your identity here), I can offer to you today an exceptional plot of historical significance. Before I paste…

Why haven't antioxidant therapies yielded more positive results?   The answer may be that Nrf2, a protein that plays an important role in some antioxidant therapies, may not be as effective due…

Without question nanotechnology is a key component in our energy future.   In recent years, developers have been investigating light-harvesting thin film solar panels made from nanotechnology…