A great temple to the god Amon was built at Karnak in Upper Egypt around c. 1785. It is from Amon that we get his cephalopod namesake, the ammonites and also the name origin for the compound ammonia…

Myomancy was a method of divination by mice. Their behaviour was observed and taken as a omen of what was to come. If their movements were calm, aggitated or aggressive, much was read into it. …

The experience of pain appears to be a complex phenomenon with humans.  The reason for the occurrence of pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both of these causes.  And…

One possible solution to the occasional lack of access to, or shortage of, primary care doctors is what are known as retail care clinics, or convenience care clinics. The popularity of these clinics…

On April 21, 2009, CDC reported that two recent cases of febrile respiratory illness in children in southern California had been caused by infection with genetically similar swine influenza A (H1N1)…

Scientists have studied gamma oscillations, high-frequency brain waves, for over 50 years in the belief that they are crucial to understanding consciousness, attention, learning and memory. Now…

Two California children who had not had contact with pigs recently recovered from infections with "unique" swine flu/swine influenza viruses, raising concern about possible human-to-human…

c. 260ish...  Look at the history of money. What we've learned... Patterns... Rampant inflation brought a devaluation of currency and a return of bartering throughout the Roman Empire

c.280 Pappus, an Egyptian mathematician, compiled a summary of all mathematical knowledge to date (list) c.300 In Bernares, Vatsayana Mallagana publishes the Kama Sutra, a comprehensive guide to…

1609 Johann Kepler formalizes his first and second laws of planetary motion

Machines to move things and people The Industrial Revolution was made possible by machines that multiplied the force of human strength. First water power, then steam, made possible the factories that…

Here is the concluding part (for the first part see here) of a discussion of a few subtleties involved in the extraction of small new particle signals hiding within large backgrounds. This is a quite…

A Brief History of the English Language Part 3 The historical development of English is an excellent model of how a grammar naturally develops.  I am trying to capture some of that history in…

If you are even a teensy little bit into reason and rationality, then you are likely to wince every time you open a newspaper, surf the web or watch television. The wince of the week definitely came…

(Sensors in the skin - does that sound like Frank Sinatra singing?) Of the professors at Reading University, perhaps the one with the highest media profile is Kevin Warwick, well known for planting…

A piece of chalk in a laboratory at the University of Stavanger in Norway may be the key to unlocking a great mystery. If the mystery is solved, it will generate billions in additional income.…

Two researchers from the Spanish Centre of Astrobiology (INTA-CSIC) have developed a mathematical model which demonstrates that a mild increase in the mutation rate of some viruses can reduce their…

A study led by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health associates the increase of cholera cases in Zambia with climate factors.  They say their results confirm that the…

DNA sequencing is the next frontier in biological research.As new sequencing technology becomes more efficient and affordable, it is increasingly available to small laboratories. Thus, sequencing…

Biomedical engineers have developed a new type of probe that allows them to visualize single ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules within live cells more easily than existing methods. The tool will help…