Blue sharks in the Gulf Stream, in the western Atlantic, probably spend all day eating squid. At first, that doesn't seem remarkable. Every big predator likes to eat squid, and sharks are no…

What do you get when you cross Science 2.0, the cultural buzzterm that really took off in 2010 (and brought with it a whole host of colloquial meanings veering into 'web 2.0-ish, it means whatever…

One more of the many crazy results of the idiotic “war on drugs” is that we have to pay lots of money for chemicals that actually cost next to nothing. For example, adding up time and money spent on…

I thought I was going into Christmas recess, but then I saw this: Graduate students the world over have got to be feeling like slackers right now: A group of 8- to 10-year-old British schoolchildren…

In the Silhouette Illusion (video at the bottom), a silhouetted woman is seen spinning on one foot, her leg extended. The appeal of the illusion is in the way the woman is spinning – she can be…

Scientists writing in Cognition have said that our ability to recognize and remember faces peaks at ages 30 to 34 - a decade later than most of our other mental abilities. Some prior studies had…

If you were around in the early days of the iPhone, you may have thought users were in love with it.   Proponents spoke of it in romantic terms and looked for reasons to discuss it, with…

Fluctuations in the world squid market tells us that A sharp increase in landings of squid or giant squid (Dosidicus gigas) occurred in Chile in the first 10 months of 2010, over 243 per cent more…

It turns out I am not the only person suspicious of "URL shorteners" designed to make very long links into shorter, manageable ones.    On a service like Twitter, where communications are…

It turns out I am not the only person suspicious of "URL shorteners" designed to make very long links into shorter, manageable ones.    On a service like Twitter, where communications are…

Ethnopharmacological importance of Asparagus racemosus : A review Manorma Sharma, Archana Sharma1 and Ashwani Kumar2 Abstract Tuberous plants are the vital source of medicinal drugs. Among these…

A reader of this blog asked in the comments thread of a recent piece the following interesting question: "Assuming mH = 201 GeV/c2, how many Higgses shoud have been produced atthe Tevatron by now…

For too long, scientists have ducked away from public service, not because their peers have been unwilling to elect them, but because there is a sense among scientifically educated people that…

Every government has UFO files.   That doesn't mean they have aliens hidden in secret, underground lairs or futuristic spaceships being studied, but they have various claims of UFOs by citizens…

Every government has UFO files.   That doesn't mean they have aliens hidden in secret, underground lairs or futuristic spaceships being studied, but they have various claims of UFOs by citizens…

Really, no one needs to add anything to the title to make it funnier but the fact that the CIA, with its vast store of intellectual talent, didn't figure its WikiLeaks Task Force and acronym WTF…

Really, no one needs to add anything to the title to make it funnier but the fact that the CIA, with its vast store of intellectual talent, didn't figure its WikiLeaks Task Force and acronym WTF…

Ahh! Because I was so busy yesterday, I forgot to give you the other half of that baby squid. Here it is! The little blob being held in those tiny, adorable arms is a yolk sac. When they are inside…

According to a well-known British figure: ... the true meaning of the Christmas story will not be revealed until Easter – or possibly much later. Now who said that?  Answer at the end of this…

A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl that was neither an early modern human nor Neanderthal, but instead belonged to a previously unknown group of…