Fluctuating temperatures in Africa have always made reliable agriculture production difficult and global warming could make it even worse.   If local varieties of maize and other food staples…

A new National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) assay using a “glow or no glow” technique may soon help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defend the nation against a spectrum…

People make value judgements about others based on their facial expressions, according to a new study carried out by Spanish and Brazilian researchers. After looking at a face for only 100…

Open Source For New Hydrogen Powered Car A new hydrogen powered car unveiled in the UK is to be developed using open source methods.The Riversimple Urban car was unveiled in public for the first time…

Darwin didn't miss much, I think we all agree, and came up with a lot given the limited science of his day.   One thing he missed, that by this time tomorrow will be the source of outrageous…

Now that I am officially a philosopher (i.e., my salary is going to be paid by a philosophy, instead of a biology, department), I can indulge full time in reading philosophy without feeling guilty. I…

Now online, PNAS has a special evolution issue, based on a talks given at a conference, with pieces by Daniel Dennett, Francisco J. Ayala, Michael Ruse, Elliot Sober, and more. Some of the titles:…

Below I offer a preview of the slides I will show tomorrow at an invited seminar on the rather technical topic of  "The b-jet energy calibration with Z-->bb decays", which I have come to CERN…

Humans aren't all that close to each other in a modern sense but in one way we may be a little closer than previously realized: the way fish learn could be closer to humans, suggests a new research…

From the Rugbyologist's blog:  St. Louis Hero Needed There is a 14 month old child in St. Louis in desperate need of an AB negative blood donor. Hospitals in St. Louis are in desperate need of…

I largely agree with this (subscription required for full text): The media not only influence public perceptions but also shape and reflect the policy debate. Few decisions are made by policymakers…

Can you fly a house with balloons?  The recent Pixar movie "Up" does, but it's animated.  In the "Up" production notes, Steve May, the film's supervising technical director, writes "It was…

Random Noise #16 : Dangerous Knowledge ... holding the paper with one hand, and jumping up and down as she works the pumping-handle with the other, she pushes dynamite down the tube till the paper…

Same-sex behavior has been extensively documented in the non-human animal kingdom, concludes a new review of existing research. Yep, homosexual behavior is common across species, from worms to…

In revisiting a chemical reaction that's been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley…

Fire drills are conducted to know what it will be like in an actual fire incident. The main objective of fire drills are to asses how fast can people evacuate the buildings safely, if ever they catch…

Neurological diseases including Parkinson's, Tourette's, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Alzheimer's, and schizophrenia are all associated with alterations in dopamine-driven…

University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.  A legitimate worry about the…

University of Leicester researchers writing in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology say they have found "convincing evidence" that cannabis smoke damages DNA and it could potentially increase…

An ancient Ice Age, once regarded as a brief 'blip', in fact lasted for 30 million years according to geologists at the University of Leicester who will discuss their findings during a public lecture…