A gene called called C6orf106, or "C6", has existed for 500 million years, but understanding how it controls the production of proteins involved in infectious diseases, cancer and diabetes is only…

I've never been much for the word "tribe." It sounds too insular in 2018, the kind of term (see also "zeitgeist", "heteronormative", and "schadenfreude") thrown around by postmodernists with their…

Science 2.0 began 11 years ago, the year that the James Webb Space Telescope was supposed to be completed, but there was no real cause for alarm about the delays until 2010, when it was three years…

Assuming that alien life has to be like life on Earth is the safest way to scientifically search for evidence of it.  A recent paper on the arXiv by a research team from Oxford is likely to…

A new paper believes detection of atmospheric signatures for a few potentially habitable planets could occur before 2030. Does that mean life on other planets? Perhaps. perhaps not. We could be first…

Around 2,200 B.C, agricultural societies around the world experienced an abrupt cooling and a critical mega-drought. Humans had been progressing nicely since the end of the last Ice Age, and…

It can't have been easy for former environmental activist Mark Lynas to change sides. His friends were on the anti-science side, he was a dutiful reader of The Guardian, where activists and…

Einstein could stick out his tongue but dinosaurs could not, according to a new paper. Instead of being like modern day lizards or legendary physicists, their tongues were probably rooted to the…

Ice seems solid to the eye, but it is really a material that flows like a viscous liquid. In the polar ice sheets, it flows towards the oceans under its own weight. Knowing how fast the ice flows is…

Because Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), in infants less than a year old, are tragedies without known explanation, scholars have searched for causes beyond stuffed animals in cribs or blaming…

“Diversity” as a concept has a lexical and political value all its own, with a widespread appeal. The problem with that is, however, that no one actually has the same idea of what diversity actually…

Every Branch of the service has ranks and uniforms which reflect their  history, mission, and culture. A potential space force would not be any different in this regard.  Consider the…

From a young age, children have a nuanced understanding of how free markets work. A new study in Child Development indicates that children as young as five incorporate market concerns—the idea that…

20 years, over 300,000 articles, over 300,000,000 readers, and 1,000,000,000 in reach.That is the power of independent, unbiased science, with no political or ideological litmus test and no editorial…

Cardiac arrest, essentially a heart attack, appears on a lot of coroner reports but it frequently misclassified and exaggerated. A new analysis finds that 40 percent of deaths attributed to cardiac…

Space contains a wealth of mineral resources so abundant that it would make money as we now think of it obsolete.  We rely on space borne assets for  very ordinary every day things and will…

Pond scums were an animal’s best friend. 540 million years ago, oxygen was scarce in the atmosphere and ocean, and animals needed to find oxygen to make a living. If you think farming is hard…

Meditation advocates from three schools say a lower ability to cope with the pain of being rejected by others leads to violence, but that people greater levels of mindfulness, a psychological fad…

While preparing for another evening of observation of Jupiter's atmosphere with my faithful 16" dobsonian scope, I found out that the satellite Io will disappear behind the Jovian shadow…

A survey sent to 1,500 pediatricians, most practicing physicians for more than 15 years and nearly all in primary care, found that 74 percent of the responding pediatricians did not approve of…