Martin Gardner died yesterday. His memory will live on through some 70+ books and, above all, through his column "MATHEMATICAL GAMES" in Scientific American. During the 25 years that Gardner's column…

Since I have started to write on this site, 13 months ago, I have realized that few of the contributors here discuss their private life and thoughts. But I was used to do it in my old site and so I…

A previously unknown function that regulates how stem cells produce different types of cells in different parts of the nervous system has been discovered.  The results improve our understanding…

A group of bioelectronics researchers say they have made a major step toward being able to regulate nerve cells externally.  Their breakthrough is based on an ion transistor of plastic that can…

"जयपुर। लगातार बढ रहे तापमान से प्रदेश भट्टी की तरह तपने लगा है। शनिवार इस मौसम का सबसे गर्म दिन रहा। कई स्थानों पर प्रचण्ड लू के हालात रहे। उत्तर-पश्चिमी राजस्थान में अघिकांश स्थानों पर तापमान 47…

 “Around 5.45 am, the captain announced that the plane would be landing in 20 minutes, and he advised passengers to put on their seatbelts. The plane landed at high speed. It jerked severely…

In the final chapter of the book Complexity: A Guided Tour, Mitchell gets to the heart of the real issues that I've been griping about in this blog. She begins by citing a harsh, 1995 piece by John…

About six weeks ago I wrote the following post on Rapid Prompting Method (edited for this current piece); it garnered a lot of attention from avid parent supporters and from the inventor of the…

Another instance of a misleading passage in Complexity: A Guided Tour: Another example where Evo-Devo is challenging long-held views about evolution concerns the notion of convergent evolution. In my…

Once upon a time, during my medical carrier, a beloved teacher – that passed away almost two decades ago - told me that if well to know is important, it is more importantto bring out that knowing…

Is the Sun going to enter a million-degree galactic cloud of interstellar gas? A group of scientists are suggesting that the Ribbon of enhanced emissions of Energetic Neutral Atoms(ENA) discovered…

I read with pleasure today a proceedings writeup of the Moriond 2010 talk given by S. Andringa on behalf of the Pierre Auger Observatory. It is too bad that I did not visit La Thuile this year: the…

Since the rediscovery of the cancer stem cell hypothesis by Peter Dirks at the University of Toronto, researchers often use these cancer stem cells (or cancer initiating cells) as the scapegoat to…

'Hollywoood's job is not to educate but to entertain and inspire', but it turns out they find science inspirational.  In the Going Hollywood podcast, you can listen (or read) about just how…

A quote from an extremely mediocre book, Complexity: A Guided Tour. Like most people coming out of the 'complexity sciences', the author has a mediocre grasp of molecular biology, both current…

The International Institute for Species Exploration  has announced their top 10 new species described in 2009. Making the cut are a minnow with fangs, golden orb spider and carnivorous sponge.…

"Leptons interact only with photons, and with the intermediate bosons that presumably mediate weak interactions. What could be more natural than to unite these spin-one bosons into a multiplet of…

“The false and exaggerated claims associated with facilitated communication have been exposed.” (Miles and Simpson, 1996) Facilitated communication is an issue of contention in some…

Autism link with migrant parents, study finds A study carried out at St George's Hospital, London, suggests that the incidence of Autism in children of parents who have moved to Britain from outside…

Using a super-sensitive camera/spectrometer on the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have mapped the skies as they appeared 10 billion years ago, giving them a better look at the bright…