A recent LiveScience article "Americans Believe in God, Astrology, and Ghosts" indicates that the beliefs people hold may actually be contradictory and a mix of a variety of themes. This tends to…

[from guest blogger and podcast co-host Julia Galef] Hey there, rational readers! I’m honored to be Massimo’s guest blogger and co-host of the upcoming Rationally Speaking podcast for the…

China emissions could double by 2020: Experts AFP 10 December 2009, 09:54am ISTText Size:|Topics:China emissions 2020 BEIJING: Despite China's pledges to improve energy efficiency, its carbon…

A team of scientists has detected tiny quantities of the unreactive volcanic trace gases Krypton and Xenon in Earth's mantle, which reveal an isotopic 'fingerprint' matching that ofmeteorites. The…

 When it comes to gambling, many millions of people just don't know when to walk away. The behavior can take a tremendous toll on their finances and family life, and currently available…

An international team of environmental scientists says that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States in the 20th century was 2 millimeters faster than at any point in the last 4…

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have found an unexpected weakness in H1N1's method for evading detection by the immune system. They say the virus has been keeping…

With the fall semester coming to a close, a Purdue University psychologist has some advice for all those college students who are poring over their notes in preparation for finals. Don't. In a paper…

Paleontologists have unearthed a previously unknown Theropod dinosaur from a fossil bone bed in northern New Mexico, settling a debate about early dinosaur evolution, and hinting at how dinosaurs…

What do you think is the number one reason men gave for cheating on their long term partner? a) Primarily Sexual Dissatisfactionb) Other/no dissatisfactionc) Equal Emotional and Sexual…

What is the number one reason men say they cheat on their long term partner? Is it a) Primarysexual dissatisfactionb) Other/nodissatisfactionc) Equalemotional and sexual Dissatisfactiond)…

This image of a tiny patch of sky reveals the oldest galaxies ever seen. Their light has traveled 13 billion years to the Hubble Space Telescope, stretched along the way from ultraviolet to near…

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” That sentence from American journalism’s best-known Santa Claus editorial (the New York Sun’s “Is There A Santa Claus?”) is still so popular that 112 years…

You have to know your CO2! When I wrote Your CO2 Is Bad For You In Your Space Suit I was not talking about the EPA. Here I will not talk about the life's CO2 exchange cycle either unless I have…

Several weeks ago, New Scientist ran a story about some mathematical modeling work that a couple of researchers in Mexico did. They modeled public transportation systems, and investigated the…

An image straight out of a CGI powered sci-fi movie lit up the skies over Norway earlier today at 8:45 a.m. local time. The phenomenon appeared as a spinning spiral of white light, entered around a…

The trouble with drones is proliferation and sovereignty.  Take this story for example where the Pakistan's minister of Information and Broadcasting urges the United States to "transfer drone…

What's the relationship between soy consumption and breast cancer? Some major news from JAMA: Even though the findings by Shu et al suggest that consumption of soy foods among breast cancer…

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is…

Q.1 (i) A yeast artificial chromosome (short YAC) is a vector used to clone large DNA fragments (larger than 100 kb and up to 3000 kb). It is an artificially constructed chromosome and contains the…