African-Americans are significantly more likely to be sanctioned by the United States welfare system than Caucasians, according to research published in the June issue of the American Sociological…

The terms 'athlete' and 'jock' are sometimes used interchangeably - especially be people who dislike athletes.   And it's usually negative.   Due to that, only 18 percent of students in a…

    What follows is a sociobiological rebuttal of white supremacy.  It purports to be a proof that no race can lay the claim to outright superiority as the best evolved example…

Just heading out to Princeton to collect in some of the Eocene lakebed sites. Aside from Ginko, pine and alder, one of the most common finds here are March flies, also known as love bugs or…

The Buzzword Blog #4 : Irrational What does 'irrational' mean?The term 'irrational' is too often just another  buzzword.  It is used very loosely, even by scientists, to imply that somebody…

When we think of volcanic conditions, our minds leap to images of vast eruptions like Mount St. Helens in Washington State, or lava oozing down the slopes of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii. With…

The catholic church has long lost its race against islamism for the religious institution with more adepts. And they ache for it: you can tell from their resentful remarks on the matter. Bishops and…

Random Noise #12.5 : Irrational  Numbers I'm far too rational to blog about other people's irrationality. I'll just get on with writing my next article and leave writing about silly…

It should be clear that the vast majority of biological interactions are largely indifferent to others, while there is also a high degree of cooperation as necessitated by the evolution of sexual…

D'you dig the Geek Off? Did you email your answers to geekoff@gmail.com? If not, too late sucka! That is, too late until Monday morning, when we play another round of the feud. Yep, every week there…

Random Noise #12 : Freedom of Speech and of the Press Freedom of speech is a right and a duty. Faced with injustice, we have both a right and a duty - a duty-right - to speak out against it.…

Nanobots seem to be well on their way to drastically expanding human life. Clusters of them are already regenerating the spinal cords of mice (Project, 2007), and soon it should be possible to…

A new, international study found that the combination of two drugs delays disease progression for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results from the Phase III “ATLAS” trial…

Recent research says that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere and now a new study in the Journal of Environmental…

'True muonium' is a long-theorized but never-seen tiny atom that was first proposed more than 50 years ago.  True muonium, which unlike "muonium" (an atom made of an electron and an anti-muon)…

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.  - Richard Feynman I just read a neat HST result on dark matter on slashdot.org. I also enjoy…

This is going to be a rather long piece, so for the lazy and the absent-minded among you I decided to put together an executive summary at the top, and not at the bottom of the article as I usually…

Stick It In Your Ear!People's reports of inner mental processes are not considered to be reliable enough to validate theories.  (Some would say formulate, even.)  Such reports are only…

Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. This may even be a result, in part, of divergent neural responses. I don't know much about the science behind this…

SINCE WE INHERITED SCIENCE AND WE ARE PRETTY SURE NO ONE WHO STARTED IT IS STILL ALIVE, WHY KNOT BELIEVE ITS CREATORS KNEW THIS AND ADDED EXTRAS TO SCIENCE FOR THIS SOLE PURPOSE TOO!