African, American, and European researchers working in collaboration over a 10-year period have released the largest-ever study of African genetic data—more than four million genotypes—providing a…

A team of scientists from Canada, Spain and the United States has identified a key gene that allows plants to defend themselves against environmental stresses like drought, freezing and heat. …

Did ancestors of Native Americans migrate to the New World in one wave or successive waves, from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations?   The topic has been debated…

A French study of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which analysed mortality rates in approximately three-quarters of the European population, has concluded that it is unlikely that the virus, often…

Autogynephilia: The love of one's self as a woman.  As used by psychologist and sexologist Ray Blanchard autogynephilia is a male's sexual attraction to the idea or image of their feminized self…

Who among us hasn't been tempted to take the easy way out? Hopefully we choose to do the right thing, but this isn't always the case. It's bad enough when your actions just affect you. But when they…

This topic isn't new, but it's worth revisiting (h/t to Bioephemera) - over at Physicsworld read about science's need for "black swan" scientists: If the path to discovery is full of surprises,…

A Brief History of the English Language Part 6 - Global English Part 1 briefly covered the period from the 5th century CE to the 14th century.Part 2 describes Chaucer's influence on the development…

Radiolarians are exquisitely beautiful amoeboid protozoa that have been living as zooplankton in the world’s oceans for about 600 million years. These tiny, siliceous, single-celled…

There is beauty in strange places. We collect shells to add a little something to our homes and gardens. Most end up in dishes in the bathroom, though the shell should take no notice. This could…

There is beauty in strange places. Think of the perfection of the shell midden, a pile of garbage that now holds interest for those who study archaeology (since garbology didn't sound as sexy).…

From CNN: Scientists spot oldest ever object in universe Wow, that gamma ray from the exploding star GRB 090423 is so old.  Why do we even keep it around?  It’s like, 95% as old as time.…

What we find at crime scenes and fossil sites is just as interesting as what is missing.  We see this play out in some of the freshwater sites of British Columbia. The Okanagan Highlands…

Evidence from the past provides a crytal ball for the future. A sediment core from 400m below the seabed of the Arctic Ocean showed that Fifty-five million years ago, deep in the Eocene, the…

At least once a year, Cosmo’s cover story is about how to have better, longer sex: a turgid treatise on positions and anatomy.  Our finest ladies’ mags are ignoring the obvious. To improve the…

Have we really stopped evolving? In Cosmos magazine, Steve Jones argues that human evolution is coming to an end: The question I have is: will human evolution really continue? I think the…

When a fake pandemic is being generated by media corporations having a slow news week, fake medicine is sure to pop up and take advantage of it.   The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great…

Well, the air in Minnesota is pretty clean, and I grew up there, so I'm identifying  with the rankings there instead of my current state of residence, which got surprisingly low grades. The…

Though we all know that nature has provided us with many vitamins, minerals and variety of  trace elements that are necessary for our survival, however, little we know that there are certain…

Our Society is a civilized society and we proudly say so. Living in a civilized society and calling ourselves as civilized people, we really need to behave that we are civilized in the true sense of…