The re-emergence of the citizen scientist began a major fast forward in 1999. Scientists at the University of California Berkeley launched a new project to virtually connect millions of…

When thinking of M theory and how it's popularized so much is said about it's wild and wonderful predictions.  However their is not much said about how to think of the M branes themselves.…

We are driven (some of us more than others) to identify, classify, and organize. According to Baron-Cohen, individuals on the spectrum are extreme systemizers (with deficits in empathizing). He…

Arctic Newsflash! Petermann Ice Tongue Loses Huge Chunk I have been watching the Petermann Glacier ice tongue for some time now. Here is what I wrote in  Arctic Ice July 2010 - Update #3:…

Arctic Ice August 2010 - Update #1 Most of the fires in Siberia seem to have been put out or burned out.  Meanwhile, the fires near Moscow continue to burn and there are more fires in Alaska.…

I'm in the process of developing a lesson plan on distracted driving for high school teachers. AAAS intends to put it up on its teacher web site, Science NetLinks. There are a handful of studies…

When I was a grad student, I installed SETI@home on a bunch of lab computers, which served as a screen saver and crunched data from scans of the sky in search of aliens whenever the computer was idle…

Boston had 8 days of above-90 degree Fahrenheit heat temperatures last month, while New York City had 14, Philadelphia had 17 and Washington, DC had 20. While those numbers are above historical…

A blob-like creature that lived in the ocean approximately 425 million years ago was revealed in research published today. The scientists developed a detailed 3D model of the only known fossilized…

What picture should we draw of the quest for new phenomena after the presentation of a wealth of new results at the international conference on high-energy physics in Paris held last week ? I am…

Anemia is a common blood disorder characterized by low hemoglobin levels and has long been associated with those suffering from colorectal cancer, but researchers at Tel Aviv University  say…

Not so long ago I started adding atheists to my Facebook account. I added about 100 of them and at least 20 of them are aggressive atheists. Aggressive atheist are easy to recognize, they often have…

I am often asked questions about my musical picosatellite, Project Calliope. Easy questions have concrete answers. "What are your sensors?": I-CubeX magnetic, thermal, light. "What magnetic field is…

Drug trials conducted by the very pharmaceutical company with an obvious vested interest in a positive result are far more likely to yield a... positive result! Perhaps not earth-shattering news to…

“John is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore, John is mortal.” This argument from two premises to the conclusion is a deductive argument. The conclusion logically follows from the premises;…

Imagine you are tasked to build the ultimate computer memory. You are provided with an unlimited budget and all the resources you need.  How big a memory capacity could you build?  You…

Back in the day, families in general seemed to do most of the work needed for themselves by themselves; since this was really required if a family was to simply survive the day. Over the past 100…

 Simmulating aspects of the big bang in a particle accelerator through the coulomb explosion of a sufficiently dense bundle of fundamental particles could be practical and informative.…

In my last post I wrote about how Hedge Fund managers base their choices on “stories” they weave with the information they gather. If you believe in rationality and evidence based thinking, the…

Variations in the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen levels may be closely linked to the evolution of life, with feedbacks between uni- and multicellular life and oxygen, say scientists from Royal Holloway,…