The unique planetary nebula NGC 2818 is nested inside the open star cluster NGC 2818A. Both the cluster and the nebula reside 10,400 light-years (3.2 kiloparsecs) away, in the southern constellation…

Massive stars, those up to 120 times the mass of our sun, should blow away the clouds of gas and dust that instead feed their growth.   Despite outward-flowing radiation pressure that exceeds…

In my experience, scientists are much too dismissive; most of them have a hard time fully appreciating other people’s work. This dismissiveness follows a kind of power law: a few of them spend a…

Rats whose mothers were fed alcohol during pregnancy are more attracted to the smell of liquor during puberty, say researchers writing in Behavioral and Brain Functions.  They say rats exposed…

Free-range chickens are more prone to disease than chickens kept in cages, according to a study published in Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica.  This also applies to all chickens kept in litter…

HUMANS have actively changed the coats of domestic animals by cherry-picking rare genetic mutations, causing variations such as different colours, bands and spots, according to a new study. …

Uniform and mottle patterns are what most people recognize as camouflage and those patterns function by resembling the background.    True background matching is not simple, though, and…

By carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1°C during the summer growing season, say researchers from the University…

'Cloaking' devices bend electromagnetic waves, such as light, in such a way that it appears as if the cloaked object is not there. In the latest laboratory experiments by Duke researchers, a beam of…

Ever since the 1966 Hollywood movie "Fantastic Voyage",  written by Harry Kleiner (with what is actually a pretty good novelization by Isaac Asimov afterward) and starring Raquel Welch as the…

Blasting biofuels for significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions is sooooo 2006, according to a new Michigan State University analysis.   Much like the environmental hype in the…

The downside to new antibiotics is that bacteria think of new ways to become resistant to them.    While resistant bacteria continue to increase, scientists keep searching for new sources…

In our 'studies you don't need to read' category is this bit of economic insight from the February edition of Addiction;  the more alcoholic beverages cost, the less likely people are to…

What is life is a valid question to some because they would simply like to make some.  Yet others, although they don't know what it is, search for life in…

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, according to Ben Franklin. But what if the prevention causes more harm than benefit? And what if the prevention doesn't prevent much of anything at…

If you haven't already, you should read this interesting guest post at Olivia Judson's blog: Many of the best-known scientists of our day are men and women exceptionally talented in herding the…

The economic crisis may actually help science. Cross your fingers - part of the stimulus package is tagged for expansion of the NSF, NIH and other entities. From Science online: House Democratic…

Pain clinics and physiotherapists have been using large, complex pieces of equipment with cables to relieve back or joint pain but a company says they have developed a breakthrough in anti-pain…

The pharmaceutical industry is currently facing some key challenges, like an increase in drug development costs, a decrease in the number of drugs being approved and scrutiny from regulatory…

A researcher from the University of Leicester has identified what looks to be the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare--from Roman times.  At the meeting of the Archaeological…