The fossil exposures of the Lincoln Creek Formation, southern Olympic Peninsula, near the town of Porter, Washington consist of tuffaceous siltstone and sandstone with concretionary beds…

Ignoring all of the likely reasons why Africa may see more civil wars in the future, a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that global warming…

A new study published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology suggests that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central…

While surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest in Tanzania, environmental scientists this week unexpectedly discovered a new species of chameleon called Kinyongia magomberae, or the Magombera…

The capacity of oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests and grasslands to store carbon emissions is considered one of the primary ways the effects of climate change can be mitigated.…

Short of a global economic collapse or the construction of a new nuclear power plant everyday, stabilizing or reducing greenhouse gas emissions is impossible, says University of Utah atmospheric…

While most of the proposals put forth to address climate change so far have called on governments to play a more active role in society, perhaps one of the best things they could do is promote free…

I wrote the following about the toothed sucker rings of the Humboldt squid in Squid Says: What's For Dinner? Probably Not You: Each ring would barely fit on the finger of an infant, and the "teeth"…

I recently re-read a classic piece by J.L. Mackie (April 1955), entitled “Evil and Omnipotence,” a stupendous philosophical essay about why theologians like Richard Swinburne are forced by their…

In today's political hotbed of ideological divisions there seems to be no end to the catch phrases that are used to convey some sentiment regarding the evils of government.  A popular bumper…

Researchers at the City College of New York say they have developed a new way to generate power for planes and automobiles using piezoelectrics.  Piezoelectrics convert the kinetic energy of…

FOXP2 is known as “the language gene.” When it goes wrong, as it famously did for a family in England, it can cause severe deficits in language ability. In the “KE family" in England, for…

I discovered that Giant Squid was a band when I was searching for squid products on Amazon (yes, that is pretty typical behavior for me). Okay, I thought, rather miffed, some punk band thinks it's…

Particle Physics had a short fling with Numerology in its young years, but the two have never met again since then. TD

According to a recent GENETICS study, a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible for production of ethylene and since this gas affects many aspects…

Hat tip to Apokalips.

Adding a new wrinkle to the 'droid versus iPhone debate, a project at Keio University in Tokyo have created iPhone software specifically designed to control androids. More specifically, they…

The Paleontologist community in China and around the world are all aflutter over a recent find in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia. Known more for its heavy oil potential and favorite export -…

A nifty news story about students in a Florida classroom watching a giant squid dissected in Melbourne, Australia, led me to hunt down an article about the dissection itself. Was it really a giant…

Pinker goes after Gladwell, for doing a sloppy job on picking and analyzing the research he uses, and then does it himself in his critique of Gladwell. Ooops! By now many of you may have read Steven…