In a familiar world of solids, liquids and gases, we find the fourth state of matter, the plasmas of lightning to the aurora borealis and fluorescent tubes at the office. Further out, minor phenomena…

Almost fifty percent of people over the age of 85 have Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that is not considered part of the normal aging process by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. Statistics on…

Depending on the animals in question, the amount of DNA per cell may be associated with body size, metabolic rate, developmental rate, or other traits. With an old fashioned cytogenetic staining…

So, over at Rationally Speaking, Massimo Pigliucci asks "Is there fundamental scientific disagreement about evolutionary theory?".  This is a reply to creationists who are making a big deal of…

I'm back from the UCSD workshop on New Communication Channels for Biology held June 27-28, 2008. The talks were recorded and are now available here. The first day mainly consisted of talks while the…

Creationists and their intellectual cousins, intelligent design proponents, keep saying that scientists disagree as to “the truth” of evolution, and that the field is therefore in crisis, despite…

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) opened his first notebook about "the species question" in 1837, not long after his return from the voyage of the Beagle.  By 1838, he had developed the basic outline…

Starve a fever, feed a traumatic brain injury. Recent studies by clinician-scientists from New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center found that patients with traumatic brain…

A few years ago Voyager 1 entered the final frontier, that place where the solar wind becomes denser and hotter and pressure from gas between stars causes it to slow - the Termination Shock. Now that…

The Bengal tiger population of Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal has declined at least 30 percent, according to camera trap results monitored by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). While once a refuge…

New research findings say that if we get smart about diet, even our intelligence can improve. In an MIT study published in The FASEB Journal, gerbils were given various combinations of three…

LONDON, July 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The In-Depth Report Examining Internet Pharmacies and Life-saving Medicines Purchased Online was Presented Today by the EAASM at the 3rd Annual Pharmaceutical Anti…

In my evolution course, I note that "Darwin spent 20 years working out his ideas and gathering evidence" before releasing On the Origin of Species in 1859. I don't say he "delayed" publication…

We all know what happens when cars collide on the freeway or an anvil lands on Wile E. Coyote's head - physics at the macro level is predictable. But what about a single hydrogen atom and a lone…

More evidence for the beneficial effect of green tea on risk factors for heart disease has emerged in a new study reported in the latest issue of European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and…

Do men who have more sex get less erectile disfunction(ED) or are studies skewed because men with erectile disfunction report having less sex? It's hard to say but the message is clear; have more…

Scientists from Hungary, Germany and the U.K. have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part…

Women over 90 are significantly more likely to have dementia than men of the same age, according UC Irvine researchers involved with the 90+ Study, one of the nation's largest studies of dementia and…

A portable chip that detects everything from food-borne diseases, pathogens and pollution in water, to AIDS, cancer, hepatitis, drug-abuse, and flu in humans in a little over an hour, is set to be…

A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide insight into ancient Egyptian urban life and a little understood…