The Intelligence in the Chinese Room. In my  article Digging Beneath the Surface of Grammar, I wrote:     It may be noted in passing that Searle's Chinese Room argument fails to…

A few weeks ago, the 13th annual Susan G. Komen Sacramento Race for the Cure was held.    The organization raises money primarily for breast health awareness, screening and support services…

In four weeks I will speak at a very interesting session of the World Conference on Science Journalism 2009, an event that takes place in London from June 30th to July 4th. Together with James…

Strangeness And Ambiguity In Language My major linguistic interest lies in the problem of getting a computer to interact with us humans using language in exactly the way that we do.  It is just…

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…

Core-collapse (or gravitational) supernovae are among the most energetic and violent events in the universe and  constitute the final tremendous explosions in the life cycles of stars 8 times…

Tony La Russa, manager of baseball team the St. Louis Cardinals, recently sued Twitter, claiming that an unauthorized page using his name damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.  …

Space weather can kill astronauts. This is one of the motivations for funding space weather. Solar events-- flares, particle storms, and coronal mass ejections-- can knock out GPS and cell phone…

Today marks day two of our three day experience at Access Data 2009.  Here with the remarkably hot backdrop of my alma mater (Colorado College) we are hoping to come the great conclusions that…

At most biomedical research conferences, you hear talks filled with published or almost published materials, which is unfortunate, because it's a lost opportunity for colleagues to talk about the…

The media is a powerful teacher of children and adolescents, an editorial in JAMA says. But what are they learning, and how can it be modified? "When children and adolescents spend more time…

Thinking Machines and The Semantic Quagmire What Is The Semantic Quagmire? I use the term "semantic quagmire" to refer to a peculiar state of mind which must ultimately be reached when thinking about…

In his “Practical Security” column in the May/June issue of IEEE Internet Computing magazine, Stephen Farrell talks about strength of cipher-suites, and the fact that the overall strength is not…

 An essential prerequisite [for genius] is a particular skepticism. [The scientist] must have refused to acquiesce in certain previously accepted conclusions. This argues a kind of an…

Want to know how gravestones will weather due to pollution?   Can you help measure hailstones?   If so, or you are wondering what else one person can contribute to solving global climate…

Did animals teach us one of the oldest forms of human technology, basketry? Did that help us learn to count? These are just two of the themes due to be explored at a University of East Anglia event…

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has obtained images of Hephaestus Fossae, , which lies at about 21° North and 126° East on Mars. Named after the Greek god of fire, Hephaestus Fossae extends for more…

Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart working in conjunction with their colleagues from the company Logos Innovationen have…

The thinking, talking robots of Isaac Asimov science fiction are nothing like what we actually have - programmed machines that do the simplest things.   European researchers in robotics,…

New research suggests that the hunger hormone ghrelin is activated by fats from the foods we eat in order to optimize nutrient metabolism and promote the storage of body fat.  The findings, the…