In one description, an observer falls freely through empty space, in another one, she hits a surface smack on, yet both descriptions are completely equivalent. This example for a duality in modern…

So I've been reading a bunch about whales and dolphins eating squid. Tomorrow there will be an exciting post about whether sperm whales really do stun giant squid with sonic blasts, but for now, here…

In 1983, two scientists, one from California and one from Denmark, co-authored a research paper titled "Can odontocetes debilitate prey with sound?" Odontocete is a fancy term for toothed whales (the…

I had the following article in the ICMPC 11 proceedings. ABSTRACT An often cited conclusion that musical chills are mediated by endogenous opioids (endorphins) is based on an experiment that showed…

One of my son’s favorite before-bed books is a Bert and Ernie number called “Bert’s Hall of Great Inventions.” (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Bert%27s_Hall_of_Great_Inventions) On each page poor Bert…

Want a real Halloween nightmare? Imagine filling your child's  too-small bucket in the first three houses and going home with only a  small slice of your kid's potential rake. But if you…

Putting your kids in daycare with other germ-infested kids may have kept them from getting diseases like Leukemia - what that means is hyper-attentive mothers insisting you go through a space-age…

Putting your kids in daycare with other germ-infested kids may have kept them from getting diseases like Leukemia - what that means is hyper-attentive mothers insisting you go through a space-age…

It isn't the first photograph of humans but two men near the river's edge in a photo of Cincinnati taken in 1848 is kind of a big deal among photography historians. As reported by NPR's Robert…

Halloween through the years in one easy graphic. Click image to see it in a more readable larger size.

Halloween through the years in one easy graphic. Click image to see it in a more readable larger size.

It's special effects on a budget and, if you like gaping holes through your stomach, it looks fantastic. Evan Booth shows us all how it is done.   A portable DVD player attached to his stomach…

It's special effects on a budget and, if you like gaping holes through your stomach, it looks fantastic. Evan Booth shows us all how it is done.   A portable DVD player attached to his stomach…

Do you log into web sites from public computers, even though I advised against it four years ago? That post only scratched the surface, really: it just talked about using public computers. These days…

«There are two main ways in which policymakers are insidiously interfering with the usual rules of supply and demand for raw materials, and myriad different smaller ones. . . . One is the policy…

Sharpening tools is no easy task.  If you've ever tried to do it yourself you know that prehistoric man had to have developed real skill to sharpen stone tools - using pressure flaking, no less.…

Unless you live in a remote mountain cabin, you might never be without an Internet connection in the world of the future.   Members of the public could form the backbone of powerful new mobile…

As a result of a global health campaign, polioviruses have almost been eradicated in many areas of the world but enterovirus 71 is closely related to poliovirus and was first detected in California…

I believe that anyone can dance.   If anyone can walk, definitely they can dance. Body has a rhythm sense. Just observe that we walk in a particular rhythm which is involuntary. Nobody…

And thus passes one of the more charismatic cephalopods of our times . . . The mollusc, named Paul, 'predicted' the outcome of all Germany's matches in South Africa, and Spain's win in the final, by…