Astronomers have discovered a star that may have been among the second generation of stars to form after the Big Bang. Located in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor some 290,000 light-years away, S1020549…

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Headlines The problem with attracting readers to scientificblogging.com with attention-grabbing headlines is that some people don't realise that perhaps only…

NASA creates dramatic artistic renderings of upcoming launches, in full color animation, often scaled for the IMAX screen.  They're great eye candy, but they are also informative, and have…

This is an English translation of a potpourri of a number of recent papers and reports by one of the most interesting modern Russian journalists, Julia Latynina. I have just added a number of related…

 Can one make plastic from glucose? When I was young, there appeared on the shelf foods such as kippers that were boil-in-the-bag.  I then thought, “is the next stage to eat the bag as well…

This New Scientist article reminds me of a project I worked on about ten years ago. The article talks about analyzing mobile-phone location data to establish patterns of how the users move around.…

Why Anchors Don't Work From earliest times to today, from boat safety pamphlet to engineering treatise on marine architecture: all are agreed that the anchor does the work of keeping a boat or ship…

A new report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that news has evolved from a consumable product to a participatory experience. Technology has not only changed how, where…

Richard Dawkins should write a paper entitled "How not to run a Web 2.0 website." Perhaps apt that he is now the former Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, as he has shown…

Researchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way, according to a study in The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings could help improve…

Physical fitness is associated with improved academic performance in young people, according to a study of fifth grade students presented at the American Heart Association's 2010 Conference on…

It may seem safe to assume that happy people are trusting people, but a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that, in some instances, people may actually be less…

New policies that eliminate sugary beverages and junk foods from schools may help slow childhood obesity, but the effects of such policies are unclear, according to a study in Health Affairs that…

Frequent secondhand smoke exposure among 13-year-olds is associated with an increased risk of future blood vessel hardening and greater risks of other heart disease factors, according to new research…

CA, Inc. , today announced what they say is the first ever neurological study of consumer reactions to a poor online experience.  You won't know what that is because you are reading this site…

A 3.5-metre-long snake that lived 67 million years ago made a habit of eating baby sauropods as they first scrambled out of their eggs, say paleontologists writing in PLoS Biology. The conclusion is…

Modern humans are generally monogamous while exhibiting tendencies toward polygamy over the course of evolutionary history, say scientists who analyzed genomic data from three population samples of…

A new study of adult participants in committed relationships suggest that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) helps people control their emotional reactions to negative facial expressions from their…

the 47-million-year-old Darwinius masillae fossil that was celebrated last year as a so-called 'missing link' between humans and early primates is actually a forebearer of modern-day lemurs and…

In a new study dedicated to the blatantly obvious, a Georgia State political scientist says that residents of states with more government corruption may not only lose trust in political officials but…