The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. That is not strictly true, of course, as this area does see its fair…

The Fossil Birds of the Jehol Biota have caused an international stir amongst palaeontologists. The Jehol outcrops of northeastern China has unearthed some of the most important Mesozoic bird…

I was homeschooled for eight years, from age 11 through to college, before it was a novel way for tiger parents to show off their dynamic commitment to their children’s education. Now, if millions of…

Sporting history is littered with tales of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Famously, the US golfer Doug Sanders was a three-foot putt away from winning the 1970 Open Championship in St…

Cannabidiol, a chemical found in marijuana plants, is enjoying a wave of financial success due to strange prescriptions for "medical" marijuana, which ended up overwhelmingly being obtained for…

Once upon a time, there were six different species of early humans. That's not science fiction, and they all belonged to the genus Homo, but only we Homo sapiens have survived. What killed  H.…

Every dog owner knows that personality changes over time, but these changes occur unevenly during the dogs' life, and each trait follows a distinct age trajectory, according to a new study.…

A new study finds that people are more motivated to use face masks and keep our distance not because experts or government bureaucrats say we should, but because we have empathy for vulnerable…

It's no secret how dogs came to evolve. A wolf trusted a human, a human fed a wolf, and this happened enough times that hostile animals were killed off and friendlier ones were not and those…

There are calls to ban vaping because it has pleasant flavors and an addictive component and that combination may lead to disease but while there are zero deaths attributable to nicotine so far,…

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, the 2019 form of coronavirus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a rush of studies searching for a vaccine to prevent infection and testing existing drugs to see…

Mosquitoes spread malaria but because wealthy nations wiped it out before declaring insecticides bad, it's easy to forget that insecticides are the only effective way to control the mosquitoes that…

With CRISPR-Cas9 finally getting its Nobel Prize pundits talk about who was excluded, like Feng Zhang and his research group at the Broad Institute, but only a few talk about entire countries left…

With CRISPR-Cas9 finally getting its Nobel Prize pundits talk about who was excluded, like Feng Zhang and his research group at the Broad Institute, but only a few talk about entire countries left…

This year’s Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded for a genuine revolution in modern science. The Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing tool allows scientists to precisely alter DNA by cutting and pasting sections…

A study using Ontario's 34 Public Health Units over the course of two months found that wearing a mask can have a significant impact on the spread of COVID-19. No argument there, anyone would be…

For some reason today I remembered that 11 years ago (wow time flies) I wrote a two-parts piece on advices for PhD students doing a thesis in experimental particle physics. As I checked it out, I…

A new paper seeks to take some of the guesswork out of subjective "sustainable" diets. Activists like True Health Initiative try to claim that a meatless diet is better for human health and the…

Have you been told you have a greater risk of heart disease based on family history? What does that even mean? It was only 40 years ago that epidemiologists still denied there was any genetic…

A small percentage of farmers engage in an alternative form of agriculture termed "organic" because they believe it is a more natural manufacturing process, since it was used in the past. The…