In February 1999, the giant German pharmaceutical company Bayer celebrated the centenary of the launch of ASPIRIN, the world’s most successful legal drug. One thing they did NOT celebrate is the…

Your brain is used to trying to win rock, paper, scissors. And so if you happen to see rock coming down, it's much easier to adjust your throw mid-flight to shoot paper than it is to adjust your…

It really isn't necessary for me to have an opinion on any topic at hand - it's so much easier to consult the latest poll to know how my fellow humans feel about an issue (and by extension, how I…

Water Bomb Terror Threat I just had to share this: The H2O-bomb has been developed by the radical New Age group, The Axis of Aquarius. http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/04/20/new-age-terrorists-develop…

Up today is my 365DOA podcast, , Your Head is Jupiter.   It's a new variant on a standard bit I use in classrooms, only it's much cooler because IT USES A COMPUTER!  (woo!) In it, you…

On the 12th July 2010, I was watching Rich Hall's 'The Dirty South'.  The programme trailer says: Rich Hall sets his keen eye and acerbic wit on his homeland once again as he sifts truth…

Unless you’ve been on Mars since the release of the iPhone 4, you surely know that they’ve had problems with the phone’s signal. The difficulty has been blamed on user error (“Dude, you’re holding…

University of Arizona (UA) scientists have announced their success in genetically altering mosquitos to be immune to the single-celled parasite that causes malaria. Professor of entomology Michaiel…

"From Disaster to Catastrophe -- What's Obama's Endgame In the Gulf?"  Fox News headline, July 15.  The headline suggests that there is a difference between a disaster and a catastrophe,…

Arctic Heroes #2 - North Pole 1 The first ever weather station on an ice floe was North Pole 1, set up May 21 1937 by a team of Russians and manned by four heroes.  The record of that event…

What Price Freedom Of Information ? There has been a great deal of fuss over a few emails and the topic of freedom of information in relation to the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit.…

Prayer to the Funding Agency Reviewer(dedicated to those who worry about the detrimental effect of rumours) Oh Funding Reviewer, on whose handsRests the destiny of full many an experiment:Be true to…

Rajasthan Patrika has reported that there is water for 3 to 4 days left for Jaipur and Ajmer. What will happen then. Will Jaipur and Ajmer survive for another 50 years or 5 years if no water is left.…

Making the rounds today is a utility written by Coding Robots that analyzes your prose and then matches it with famous (note: not necessarily someone you like) authors. Among the blogosphere outside…

Chomskybot v Baseballbot The unsleeping Chomskybot stands ready to write a paragraph on linguistics at any time, just for you. Let us continue to suppose that the fundamental error of regarding…

How does a former math teacher in Texas keep winning the lottery?  Joan Ginther has hit four Texas Lottery jackpots and raked in $21 million since 1993 ($5.5 million, half of the Texas Lottery…

Superstition may work if you think it works.   If only voodoo were so easy, we'd love to have an army of zombies at our command. But people, and certainly athletes, maintain any number of…

A new study says it is the first to identify a life-or-death "cell competition" process in mammalian tissue that suppresses cancer by causing cancerous cells to kill themselves.  Central to…

Arctic Ice July 2010 - Update #2 Something strange is going on.  Arctic watcher blogs are abuzz with talk about the behaviour of graphics which are supposed to show ice extent, area or volume.…

Funny. While dozens of online media are abuzz with the (non)-news, and while Fermilab Today tweets that there is no Higgs in store for us and a blogger in search of fame is just spreading unconfirmed…