Parasites don't get a lot of respect these days but we may have to reconsider that.  In spite of their nasty reputation, they may have given us the joy of sex. What's so great about sex? If you…

Contemplating Eudaimonea Some recent discussions here have prompted me to comment on the ideas of happiness and eudaemonia, which are considerations of note in my work. In fact, I’m currently writing…

Two studies published in Science Express show the analysis of gamma-rays from two dozen pulsars, including 16 discovered by  NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is the first spacecraft…

Why do some species  have parents working together to raise young?  In humans, it is the norm but in nature it is rare. Birds, like humans, have offspring raised by two parents and…

Even among giants Messier 87, with two to three billion times the mass of our sun, stands out, completely dominating the Virgo cluster. A supermassive black hole exists in the center of Messier 87…

The 2009 World Conference on Science Journalism took place last week in heat-wave-struck London, at the convenient location of Westminster Central Hall (see below). More than 900 delegates got…

Robots, lacking families and pensions, will rush into scenarios where humans fear to tread, like rescue missions following natural disasters.   So they need our support.   RoboCup Rescue is…

Six groups of scientists from the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the University of York and the Astbury Centre for Structural and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, at the…

Mars, Incorporated, the global brand dealing primarily with chocolate, other candy and pet food (1), wants to discuss its cocoa sustainability program as part of a summer-long sustainability…

Philosophers have the embarrassing habit of apologizing for formal logic. Mathematicians don’t bother because they don’t care -- they’re just interested in the pretty pretty symbols and waste no part…

Despite the glib use with which people invoke the idea of freedom. Freedom is a scary concept. The ability to do absolutely anything one wishes is simply overwhelming. Of course, in practice this isn…

As I promised a week ago, I am posting answers to a few of the 42 questions which constituted the first part of an the exam selecting experimental particle physicists for the INFN (the italian…

Have a really smart kid who loves big trucks but you can't stand loud, growling voices with too much reverb in stadiums?   You're in luck.    MANTRA (The Manufacturing Technology…

Paperless office?  An optimistic pipe dream.    We use more paper documents than at any time in history despite the prevalence of the Internet and digital technology.    Part…

If you read internet science in 2006, you'd have thought former president George W. Bush's limitations of use of embryonic stem cell lines had killed science.  In reality, embryonic stem cell…

Look what I found on Quark Expedition website! http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/257 In a nutshell, Quark is sponsoring a competition to send someone on an eco-cruise of Antarctica in…

What seems to be the problem in recognizing these words as being separate concepts?  Everytime I look there's another abuse of the word "selfish" when "self-interest" is intended.  Ranging…

Stephen Meyer, Signature in a Cell, Part Two.  The central argument of Stephen Meyer’s book, Signature in a Cell, is that coded instruction sets in DNA, just like computer code, require…

A Science Of Human Language - Part #10 In this part of the series, commenced here, I give some concrete examples from various languages of how words can cue the category from which other words were,…

Tangential Science: it's not necessarily science, but it's still funny. 1. The Japanese have responded to the persistent outrage of Greenpeace over their whaling efforts by seeking to enrage the anti…