My Dear Mr. Darwin, Happy 200th birthday! I hope you are as well as can expected for someone who has been dead for nearly 130 years. I suppose that your final book, the one about earthworms, has a…

First green tea may have anti-cancer properties. Now it turns out, according to a pre-pub in the ASH journal Blood, that polyphenols in green tea can interfere with cancer treatments. Researchers in…

The use of stem cell research in medical therapies has been hotly debated by the political, scientific, ethical and religious communities alike. Ethical considerations are weighed against the…

It seems that a new study is always uncovering new health benefits of hot peppers. Garnering a high-profile endorsement  from Hillary Clinton as well as doctors and scientists, peppers'…

I don't drink coffee, and to some degree this has impeded my astronomy career. Coffee is the one social connection even the most isolated theorist engages in. Heck, our wall of 3x3 monitors showing…

Throughout history, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and Phd students lacking funding for actual research have turned to the thought experiment in hopes of discovering something publishable,…

Excavations in Colombia co-organized by Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the…

As many as 2.4 million Americans have schizophrenia so a late or incorrect diagnosis and the lack of effective treatment options can destroy a sufferer's quality of life. Schizophrenia usually…

Influenza is and remains a disease to reckon with. Seasonal epidemics around the world kill several hundred thousand people every year. In the light of looming pandemics if bird flu strains develop…

University of Minnesota researchers say they have identified the "master gene" behind blood vessel development.  Using genetically engineered mice, researchers with the University of Minnesota…

An international research team of scientists from UC Riverside, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Geoscience Australia, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, the California Institute of…

Autism affects as many as 1.5 million Americans, and the number is increasing, according to the Autism Society of America. It is estimated that 1 in 150 births involve children with some form of…

Women who stopped taking the postmenopausal hormone combination of estrogen plus progestin experienced a marked decline in breast cancer risk which was unrelated to mammography utilization change,…

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine say they have discovered a gene that when mutated causes obesity by dampening the body's ability to burn energy while…

Show Me The Science Month Day 8 A tuatara may look like an iguana, but it's a reptile in a category all its own. Tuataras are most closely related to lizards and snakes, but in some ways they are…

I feel like I found this article with near-perfect timing, considering that I am starting a unit on genetics in my Biology classes.  To recap: sadly, after scientists seemed to have successfully…

Google Earth has the answer to this question, apparently.  Developers are starting to include ocean floor data in the maps accessible via the program.  It's about time, really- but first I…

What is it, this life that we are presented with? Human history has brought us from bands roaming, hunting, each day guided by mere survival, through villages and great empires of mortar and steel.…

Evolution may be viewed as a controversial subject by much of the US population, but evolutionary biologists frequently complain that this controversy is manufactured by opponents of evolution who…

Recently I read on this site Massimo Pigliucci’s articles on Hard and Soft Science.  As usual, though, I at first sailed over the main theme, and picking up one or two phrases went off on one of…