It's always a little irksome to see or hear 'X causes Y% of cancer' because, really, it is the kind of culturally partisan gibberish that has made it possible for disreputable genetics testing…

The word 'Shirk' normally carries quite pronounced negative connotations. But are there circumstances when shirking might have beneficial effects? For example in the efficient operation of teams?…

HALOPHYTES AS POTENTIAL FOR BIOMASS YIELD IN COASTAL AREAS OF THE WORLD. . There's a limited amount of fresh water in the world and more demand for it than the supply can fill. India has several…

How can basically honest scientists using a rigorous methodology have different data?  Numerical models are tricky business and while climate scientists are rapidly becoming experts in…

Science meets society (SMS) has interviewed me. Actually, they took my answers to their list of questions so to make it look like an interview may have taken place. I am thankful for the honor and…

Last week, word came from Prudhoe Bay that sent chills through me as surely as if I’d been standing in the Alaskan North Slope drilling outpost myself. The United States Department of Energy – in…

Type Ia supernovae are important for measuring the universe because they're bright enough to be seen across large distances and similar enough to be a reference, an an object of known luminosity -…

A new paper by Natural Resources Defense Council says hydraulic fracturing (fracking) generates massive amounts of polluted wastewater in in the Marcellus Shale that threatens the health of…

It seems that one Toby Cubitt,  a quantum physicist, has done research which proves mathematically that physics is hard.  Well no duh.  Physics is the subject sane people avoid in…

If bugs have their own Tori Amos, she is likely writing about sexual conflict and how reproduction exists at all given that it can be so costly, especially to females. One aspect of this conflict…

Many proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, chirality or "handedness"…

Pentamodes, proposed in 1995 by Graeme Milton and Andrej Cherkaev, have been purely theoretical but three-dimensional transformation acoustics ideas, for example inaudibility cloaks, acoustic prisms…

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) wants to develop a solid-state laser weapon prototype that will demonstrate multi-mission capabilities aboard a Navy ship, officials announced May 8. In case you…

Poor people in developing nations have been caught in a cultural tug-of-war over how to best keep them from dying of Malaria.  What they need to break the impasse between anti-science acolytes…

Here's a pretty good kickstart for a science resume; inventing a disease-fighting, anti-aging compound using nano-particles from trees at age 16. Janelle Tam took top honors at  the 2012…

The so-called 'reality-based community' hates popular culture, unless they like it ironically. Sports most of all. But, argues George Washington University Professor of Anthropology Jeffrey P.…

How do you effect change, change that's big, change that's lasting? Can you, can one person, have that kind of impact? I remember arguing adamantly with my grandfather nearly 24 years ago that one…

The sexual maturation of female mice has been linked to longevity by researchers.  They had previously established that mouse strains with lower circulating levels of the hormone IGF1 at age six…

Are modern Jews a ‘race’—the descendants of an ancient tribal people, as Biblical lore has it? Or do they trace their ancestry to Eurasia as Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People,…

I've some background in space weather-- the influence of solar activity on Earth and near-Earth orbits.  My new job as a professor at Capitol College has brought me into contact with several…