A study of college students found that the more time they spent on Facebook, the more likely they or their squeeze got jealous about the information posted there, leading to more time spent on…

If there's one thing you've heard over and over, it's that mean old religion has always been the enemy of science.   It isn't true, of course, but at least in America, with its Protestant…

Harboring astonishing genomic variability, human brain cells prefer to have not one, but many DNA scripts. A team, led by Fred Gage, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk's Laboratory of Genetics, found…

Geckos have the uncanny ability to traverse even the trickiest terrain without so much as a slip. Until now, it has been unknown when and how they switch on their they all-foot grip. Scientists at…

When the ancient Japanese art of origami first came about, it consisted of one piece of paper folded to form cranes, flowers, and other shapes. Now, however origami has been revised and resized a bit…

It doesn't take a catastrophe to end entire lineages. (Well, for the dinosaurs it did.) But an analysis of 200 million years of history for marine clams found that vulnerability to extinction runs in…

A new process that cleans wastewater, generates electricity, and can remove 90 percent of salt from brackish water or seawater, was reported by an international team of researchers from China and the…

Prospects for building a practical quantum computer are as unpredictable as quantum mechanics itself. However, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have…

Usain Bolt, sprinter from Jamaica, currently holds the world record in the 100 meter sprint with a time of 9.69 seconds.  Whenever new records are set, people ask 'what is the limit on human…

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is a contentious debate.   A large pharmaceutical company with budget to spend can't usually find a friend in science but even with vague benefit it's…

The Commonwealth Fund,  a private foundation devoted to health care reform, has issued a report saying that President Obama's proposed health care plan would help more than 13 million uninsured…

Now that people have finally realized ethanol is a government-run, unscientific boondoggle, efforts are under way to make legitimate biofuels efficient enough for mass usage. Microalgae are…

As kids, we all liked to imagine scenes where big dinosaurs squared off against each other for gigantic battles - if you're young, imagination is like a Transformers movie, but without $100 million…

Uncompressed hydrogen will require a tank the size of a bus to take your car 300 miles but compressed hydrogen can be ... explosive ... unless the materials for storage get a lot better. Engineers in…

As you might imagine, I get a lot of press releases.  As I have said here before, I like getting them because it's difficult for me to know all the good things happening out there, especially if…

Before we consider the issue of health insurance it is useful to examine the basis of insurance, generally, and how revenue is generated within that business model.  The basic premise is that a…

Hitler's gift to astronomy? What? Believe it or not, Hitler wanted to give Mussolini and Rome a planetarium*. Rome was among the first in the world to build a planetarium. Italy (and Mussolini) had…

Until recently, I had only known of Thomas Carlyle as a writer, mightily significant in the 19th century, but somehow superannuated by the time I heard of him.  However, recently I learnt that…

Stabbed by his once most faithful man after many other blows received by the conjurors, Julius Caesar pronounced those words, according to reports, before falling to death. Now, is history repeating…

There's this little company you may have heard of called GE.   Yeah, it's the one Edison started and I don't know where you come down in the whole Westinghouse/Edison fight but one of those guys…