Most are unaware of it but the evolutionary arms race between plants and plant diseases is always happening around us.  Fungi are a major cause of plant diseases and are responsible for large…

Just saw a PR blurb about a new iPhone game called Squid Kid. Squid Kid lets the player swing in any direction, cut corners, find short cuts and capture the most notorious villains the ocean has ever…

I went to a conference this morning at the Hope Street Group, a DC-based think tank. They had a panel of doctors, PhDs, a lawyer, consultants, John Podesta (Clinton's healthcare czar) and an…

The three problems of humanity were outlined in a talk by Nick Bostrom (of Oxford University, UK) at TED in April 2009.In this piece I will continue to examine the "big" problems identified in the…

What is the basis of distinction in each of the four steps? This is the five kingdom classification given by scientist Whittaker (1969).This scheme was based on - Structure of Cells - {prokaryotic…

... India, actually. Today, Wikipedia flagged up a new article, Coffee production in India, with a interesting piece of history.  Quoting in full from the article: Coffee growing has a long…

Paleontologists recently unearthed bones, likely in Montana or Wyoming, of a new dinosaur species dubbed Stochastisaurus. "Based on surrounding species and the fossils themselves, there's an…

Anyone can be skeptical about a scientific result. It's good to state your skepticism, to make your view known. But are you done once you speak your view? Is that all it takes, a quick skeptical…

Recent research proposes that 40,000 years ago a series of massive, volcanic eruptions caused drastically cooler, dryer climate change, which was then responsible for driving Neanderthals to…

Teaching a subnuclear physics course is a quite refreshing experience. In general, much of the stuff that one has learned through years of sweating on books slowly degrades and becomes "fuzzy". That…

The title, “The 2010s will be to the 2060s what the 1960s are to us today” is in a sense the most uplifting quote I have heard in a long while (yeah, I know about all the bad things, too, whatever).…

Okay, this is really cool. It's an interdisciplinary project between biologists, mathematicians, and engineers to understand and, eventually, mimic cephalopod skin. One of Hanlon's many discoveries…

Less than 8,000 years ago, evidence shows modern people suddenly appeared en masse outside Africa, on the shores of the Persian Gulf.  An odd event, to be sure.   Jeffrey Rose, writing in…

We've all done it: we've blurted out something we wish we'd bitten back. We've made a face or indicated our displeasure or contempt when it would have been better to maintain the appearance of…

I have been again teaching two subjects where electric and magnetic phenomena are important (atomic physics and solid state physics) and met naturally new students. I always tell about the SI system…

As a form of encouragement for the first steps in the scientific publishing world, I am here taking the licence to draw your attention, dear reader, to the first article published here by my nephew…

In Europe and worldwide the public attention to environmental protection is growing, together with research of new technologies and new solutions to reduce pollution sources, also in the field of…

Everyone has heard of "Fahrenheit 451", the classic novel where big government gets its agenda by increasingly taking away rights in order to mandate fairness.  This article has nothing to do…

"My two dads" is no longer just a lousy TV show.  Using induced pluripotent stem cell technology (controversy-free!) scientists have produced male and female mice from two fathers. It isn't part…

The race is on to replace lithium-ion batteries and Rice University research may put nickel-tin nanowires in the hunt. The vertical arrays of nickel-tin nanowires are encased in PMMA, the…