Being capable of asking the right question is a crucial skill. Dick Feynman tells a story in his book, "Surely you're joking, mr. Feynman": at a meeting with a bunch of military big shots he is shown…

"Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints." Alfred Hitchcock

On my regular blog, I recently commented about a specific patent that I don’t think should have been issued, and I referred to a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited patent protection for…

The authors of a new study featured in Annals of Internal Medicine say that kitchen spoons should be avoided when taking medicine, because it's easy to under or overdose when using them to measure.…

A team of researchers at Binghamton University who were able identify specific types of chronic wound bacteria and test their ability to produce cell-cell signaling molecules say listening in on…

Writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, a team of researchers says that testing hair from Asian monkeys living close to people may provide early warnings of toxic threats to humans…

Children whose parents refuse to vaccinate them are nine times more likely to get chickenpox compared to fully immunized children, according to a new study led by a vaccine research team at Kaiser…

 Although smoking is a well-known risk factor for type 2 diabetes, new research published in the January 5 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that quitting the habit may actually…

Although running can confer many health benefits, the shoes runners wear while exercising may actually be doing them harm. In a study published in the December 2009 issue of PM&R: The journal of…

Bacon and Eggs are delicious. And most people probably wouldn't mind having more of both in their diets for that reason alone. Pregnant women, however, may have a real reason to eat bacon and eggs:…

Researchers from the University of Texas and Shriners Hospitals for Children say a compound from licorice root (glycyrrhizin from Glycyrrhiza glabra) might be an effective treatment for antibiotic…

New evidence uncovered by a team from Imperial College London and the University College London (UCL) suggests that during the Hesperian Epoch, approximately 3 billion years ago, Mars sustained lakes…

Women's minds and bodies respond differently to sexual arousal, whereas men's bodies and minds tend to be more in tune with each other, according to research conducted by an international team of…

 Researchers from UC San Diego, Santa Barbara and MIT have developed a "cocktail" of different nanometer-sized particles that work in concert within the bloodstream to locate, adhere to and kill…

 Volcanic rocks buried along the coasts of New York, New Jersey and New England, and as far south as South Carolina and Georgia, might be ideal reservoirs to lock away carbon dioxide emitted by…

What is one of the key secrets that a great grant writer knows, but that most other people don’t? Let’s use a story to explore this one. In middle school I was a very disengaged student. I struggled…

Note to self. The list of countries to avoid visiting grows in 2010 with the entry of Ireland, a green country where people speak with a funny accent and drink good spirits. These are not at all…

After re-emerging from a rather debilitating new years' eve banquet, I feel I can provide my own answers to the second batch of physics questions I proposed a few days ago to the most active readers…

Some years ago, I was watching a wildlife TV programme, where a mother leopard was leading her three cubs, and they encountered a bank. Two of the cubs jumped it on the first go, but the third…

In the age of the Hubble Space Telescope, and ever larger earthbound scopes being build, many people are of the impression that one needs costly equipment to enjoy the night skies. Nothing is further…