Shortly after the Second World War, the famous naturalist, Gerald Durrell, was collecting animals in Cameroon.  While he generally got on well with the locals wherever he went, one frustration…

--- ---WARNING--- --- THIS IS RAW UNEDITED CONTENT --- it essentially amounts to stream of conscious and I have not gone back over it since I wrote it. I have included it because it contains some…

A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed…

Research performed in the Center for Biomolecular Science&Engineering (CBSE) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that mobile repetitive elements--also known as transposons or…

AAAS bills its annual meeting as 'the world's largest general science conference', which sounds just narrow enough to be true and since I am a patron member and we're a science community (indeed, we…

In all the hype surrounding the Large Hadron Collider during the last few years, it was easy to miss the fact that low energy physics was still accomplishing a lot - and that no one was sure what the…

I recently spoke to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher about her groundbreaking work on the chemical basis of our personality and its influence on who we fall in love with.  As it turns…

Just a little weekend tidbit, art from the science world. Sometimes, during talks, I'll see art where others see just a data or figure. Here are two cases from a recent conference that I love.…

The Brits are always thinking ahead and we could learn a thing or two from them on this side of the pond.   Those cheeky blokes are ditching pricey baubles in favor of if-we-keep-printing-money…

I am a firm believer in the possibility and promise of embryonic stem cells. In a politically, religiously and even scientifically charged climate, this is a risky thing to announce. But as a…

Today, of all days, anything is possible. The laws of man and god are subverted by that of Murphy. This day is made doubly potent by its placement before the geek's darkest day of the year: Valentine…

Neandertals were the closest relatives of currently living humans. They lived in Europe and parts of Asia until they became extinct about 30,000 years ago. For more than a hundred years,…

A York University research team has tracked the migration of songbirds,  the most common type of bird in our skies, by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks – a world first and…

Adaptation is one of the driving forces behind evolution, along with selection and the appearance of new species, say a group of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München researchers, but they say that…

University of Leicester biologist Dr David Harper has conducted research for over 25 years at Lake Naivasha in Kenya and says today that your cheap boyfriend's (unless you are are the cheap boyfriend…

Are you smarter than a pigeon?   We don't mean smarter as in able to figure out why it's $14  a day for lousy internet access in a hotel or $14 to see an old movie in your hotel room or the…

A multi-institutional team of researchers has reported the sequences for all of the 99 known strains of cold virus, nature's most ubiquitous human pathogen. The feat exposes, in precise detail, all…

One subject I love to explore is how everyday technology depends upon some very deep theories either in pure or applied sciences that in their abstract form might be viewed at best as academic or at…

Within the next few years it may be possible to go to Walmart, pick up a gallon of milk, and then stop by and have your genome sequenced while you wait. Sound unbelievable? Recent developments in…

Today is Darwin Day. I didn't think I'd participate in this particular internet adventure. It looked like a lot of fun, Hank and Adaptive Complexity made sure of that, but it would be a long…