What is spacetime geometry?     Think of a very large ball. Even though you look at the ball in three space dimensions, the outer surface of the ball has thegeometry of a…

Media Wakes Up From Coma The media is currently reporting on 'mind-reading' experiments using brain scanners.  Whilst the 'yes-no' response is news, the use of brain scanners to detect awareness…

Bacteria that infect chronic wounds can be deadly to maggot 'biosurgeons' used to treat the lesions, say researchers writing in the journal Microbiology. During the study, maggots applied to…

Despite the endless anti-smoking campaigns and serious health risks associated with tobacco use, many smokers don't give up the habit. Currently, the smoking quit rate remains discouragingly low.…

For the first time, a team of astronomers has completed a demographic census of galaxy types at two different points in the Universe's history — in effect, creating two Hubble sequences — that help…

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University have designed an ultra-lightweight sponge made of clay and a bit of high-grade plastic they say will effectively clean up spills of all kinds of oils…

Researchers from Yale and George Mason Universities say that, despite a lack of concern over climate change, the American public is in favor of policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and…

Scientists have long known that sperm's activity level depends on their internal pH. And now researchers writing in Cell say they have found the channel that allows the tiny cells to rid themselves…

Writing in the latest issue of Science, researchers say they have identified the vibrant colors that adorned Anchiornis huxleyi, a feathered dinosaur extinct for 150 million years. The discovery may…

From an evolutionary perspective, same sex attraction doesn't make much sense. But a pair of psychologists writing in Psychological Science say the "kin selection hypothesis" may explain why the…

 Data collected since the pre-industrial age indicates that the mean surface pH of the world's oceans has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 units with another 0.4 unit decline possible by century's end,…

Research conducted by scientists at the Weizmann Institute and the University of Maryland reveals that bats, which 'see' with beams of sound waves, skew their beams off-center when they want to…

The debate of food vs fuel is an excuse for putting lame excuses for our failures to retain productivity level of the farmlands, irregular practices of growing crops in the areas where they should…

You're living as part of a small band of hunter-gatherers 30,000 years ago in what will later become France. How do you explain the fact that a stone, when dropped, falls to the earth? How do you…

Go check out Carnival of Evolution # 20 at Skeptic Wonder. This month's issue includes a metagenomic analysis of the carnival submissions. (I get a fairly long phylogenetic branch of my own!) Go…

    What Is The ‘Reality’ For The Observer Who Is Observing A Person?     February 3, 2010 – Damascus, Syria   Ayad Gharbawi       The definition/s of a Mind…

To get it on or not get it on, that is the question for adolescents and teens. The Bush administration pushed abstinence-only education as the way to go, and anyone daring to discuss safe sex and…

The current system for allocating grant money favors senior investigators with established labs over junior faculty with smaller labs and shorter track records, and conservative projects that are…

Those of you who primarily follow this blog by RSS should come check out some of the remodeling done around here: Hot Topics: Scientific Blogging has some outstanding writers, who are now coming…

Quantum biology?   Sure, it doesn't get as much attention as its physics counterpart but special proteins called light-harvesting complexes are getting some attention for the field and a…