A study in the March edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, senior-authored by Jerome C. Wakefield, empirically challenges the effectiveness of psychiatrists' official diagnostic manual in…

This has nothing to do with science, unless you count sci-fi as science. But I loved it, which is reason enough for me to post it. "Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted…

Climate Crook : Scam! Scam! Scam! Followers of my blog will no doubt guess that this article is about Godfrey Bloom - he of the famous quote:"There appears to be a woeful lack of candour and…

On 31 December 2009, Fabrice Bellard announced that he had set a new world record for the most number of digits of the number pi. His algorithm has calculated the first 2.7 trillion digits of this…

An analysis in Nature of more than 70,000 galaxies by a team of physicists suggests that the universe – at least up to a distance of 3.5 billion light years from Earth – plays by the rules set out 95…

During the 2008 presidential campaign, approximately 20 percent of Americans believed that then-Senator Barack Obama was a Muslim despite news stories that attempted to debunk the rumor, according to…

Scientists writing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society say they have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in SMM…

A new study published in the British Medical Journal suggests that people in good health are almost twice as likely to be interested in sex compared to those in poor health. Sexual activity has…

Researchers from Kuwait University predict that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014 — almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. The team explains that scientists…

University of California, San Francisco researchers have uncovered a crucial mechanism that encourages alcohol consumption after extended abstinence. Previous work has suggested that people, places,…

Some chickens appear to be male on one side of the body and female on the other, and researchers writing in Nature this week say they know why. It was previously thought that sex chromosomes in…

Lapham's Quarterly has published a long essay, Secular Revival by Warren Breckman, editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas. The article starts by looking at the dream of the scientific…

End of the World Sci-Fi Oryx and Crake (2003)The Year of the Flood (2009)by Margaret Atwood In Atwood's world of Oryx and Crake, biotechnology has ruined the world, in more ways than one. As the…

Will You Give Sheepswool Sheep? I'm no Dr. Seuss, or even Zseuss.  But encouraged by Becky's enjoyment of my Grasshopper Green, here's another few words.  I hope that, perhaps, my words may…

A reader was aghast-- outraged, I say-- at my suggestion that this precious music satellite, Project Calliope, might launch a few months late. Now, the rocket people at InterOrbital Systems are rock…

How do we fix science journalism ? Simple: we don't. We let it sink, and be reborn in a different form. It is rather utopic to insist that in a world of changing means of communications, a world…

Forgive me if this has been covered already, but I am curious about the use of computers in Science I have to add a quick sentence here just to prevent the questions overlaying the initial graphic I…

Ars Technica notes that famed anti-PowerPoint communications guru Edward Tufte is getting some sort of job consulting for the Obama Administration. In passing, they point to one of Tufte's online…

Having once been an environmental activist, one thing that bothers me about modern day environmental activists (*) is their insistence, despite any evidence, that jamming people into cities and going…

We have the Rust Belt and Bible Belt and Sun Belt and Dairy Belt and Corn Belt and all sorts of other belts in the US, but this is the first I've heard of the Beer Belt. Or, more appropriately, the…