The giant planets in our solar system have very diverse rings. Observations show that Saturn’s rings are made of more than 95% icy particles, while the rings of Uranus and Neptune are darker and may…

In the late 16th century, two brothers from the illustrious Fugger merchant family had news from all over the world sent to them in Augsburg by mail. At the time, so-called "novellantes" compiled and…

If Elon Musk and Robert Zubrin have their way, we may get migrations of hopefuls setting off from Earth to Mars to colonize what they believe to be a "New World". If so, what they find there will be…

The mystery of what clumps galaxy clusters together, and provides for a quarter of the matter-energy budget of the universe, really looks like _the_ most important scientific question we face today.…

[Update 11/12/2016: Is it all an optical illusion? Read the follow-up.] [Update 11/7/2016: Visually, fast drops in a time series, like those of D140 and D260, will tend to appear to squash any noise…

The recent crash of the ExoMars Schiaperelli lander on Mars highlights how difficult it is to land there. So why is that? Why are landings on Mars so complex? And why do they fail so often? ESA is…

The premise of this two-part blog post is that this presidential campaign has outdone every other. This time, the altered reality has already transpired and the election itself will be an anti-climax…

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal forms of cancer. Early detection is essential to improve prognoses. Working toward that goal, a collaboration of researchers in Japan has discovered…

It is still true that far more men than women have leading roles in many organizations. If you ask women to explain this, as many researchers have, they point to workplace culture as a prime culprit.…

In the dome of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., there is a painting called The Apotheosis of George Washington. The significance of this work of art cannot be underestimated. At the very…

A false history of science was used to initiate colonial education, in support of colonialism. This false history persists. In a recent article about decolonizing mathematics, for instance, Professor…

Since President Kennedy, the Pesident by tradition sets long term objectives for human spaceflight for NASA. President Bush's vision was a return to the Moon. President Obama's vision treats the Moon…

On Thursday, Gold Coast man Gable Tostee was found not guilty of the murder of a woman, Warriena Wright, who fell to her death from his unit’s balcony. The case raises questions about how common…

During the debates, fact-checkers like CNN and Politifact focus on evaluating the truthfulness of what each candidate said. While it is important to get the facts straight, focusing on the truth of…

Summary: Legally the president makes the decision and everyone else then scurries around and follows his or her orders; in practice it's not going to be that simple in peace time especially. He or…

Hearing voices that other people can’t is a meaningful experience. Like dreams, they can usually be understood in terms of one’s life experiences. Within mental health services, however, the…

A prolonged Internet outage affecting major sites like Twitter, Netflix, Spotify and The New York Times on Friday has commentators concerned that this is was a practice run for future, more…

800x600 Metaphors in Quantum Mechanics   Quantum mechanics describes fundamental natural phenomena that are not accessible for direct human perception. Not surprisingly, it appears from…

The Jews. First they were perhaps just a little bit cleverer, perhaps by accident, but any process in natural selection is fundamentally describable as an accident. Or perhaps they started out just…

Do you have a ten year old daughter who asked you "can we build a bomb shelter?" and who has nightmares about the world ending? Have you watched a timer on the online version of a major broadsheet…