What does it mean to be human? In the six million years or so since our ancestors first stood upright, we still don't have the perfect answer. In an effort to help the public appreciate our own…

Unexpected context, So much for inventing motors or figuring out Autism Found on the web, from Stumble-upon So much for solving autism, inventing computors (Alan Turing 1912-1954) , motors or…

  Birefringence and the polarized light 1. Definition Birefringence is a kind of optical phenomenon that when the light go through an anisotropic crystals, there are two emergent refracted…

We are on. This afternoon just after 1PM the LHC beams have started to produce proton-proton collisions in the heart of the experiments, at the never-before achieved energy of 7 TeV. It was a long…

A very interesting question has been posed by colleague Mark Changizi (see his fascinating blogs at www.science20.com) related to brain size as it relates to body size. He presents good…

How much is my labor on the Project Calliope satellite costing me? Accounts range from 'zero' to $14,400, to $65,000. That's the difference between what I'm being paid to do it for, what I'm losing,…

Prosopagnosia or prosopagnosia, is a perceptual deficit acquired or congenital central nervous system that prevents individuals who are affected to properly recognize people's faces, it is determined…

Researchers studying the health information content of Twitter updates say misunderstandings about antibiotics have the potential to spread widely through social networking sites. Writing in the…

Most obesity research focuses on what kinds of foods people eat and how much. But a news study from the University of Alabama suggests that timing may be equally important when it comes maintaining a…

Researchers from Jena University in Germany say it is not only painful memories and associations that put our pain memory on alert, words can do the trick as well. "Even verbal stimuli lead to…

Arizona State University researchers have reengineered the genetics of cyanobacteria, producing mutant strains that continuously secrete fatty acids through their cell walls. The reprogramming has…

Hemophilia is caused by a genetic defect that inhibits the body's ability to control blood clotting. The two forms of the disease — hemophilia A and B — are associated with the absence of proteins…

Just one small square of chocolate a day can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease, says a new study published online today in the European Heart Journal. The authors of the…

Marketing experts say advertising that touts head-scratching scientific ingredients or other such "puffery" only an expert could appreciate is likely to alienate informed consumers. The findings…

Lego Turing Machine I just came across a wonderful teaching aid: Our success in implementing the Turing Machine as a physical device is exciting because the Turing Machine theoretical construct is…

So how dangerous is the Large Hadron Collider? How likely is it that when operated at maximum energy the LHC will create a black hole and wipe out earth? Eric Johnson, assistant professor of law at…

One day last summer, I was making a feeble stab at cleaning the deck (or as I like to call it the “backyard basement!”) There was a long, thin plastic planter (junk) with dirt in it…

    If you have ever wondered why we sleep, you are not alone. The puzzle of sleep and the question of why we sleep has been a much-researched topic yielding few really definitive…

Greg Critser started blogging here within a month after we opened the doors.  How did he hear of us?   I have no idea and neither does he but shortly after we started we were referenced by…

Reflecting an interest that I've had for some time, that has been rekindled due to its inherent entanglement with my fundamental area of research  - the nature of time, I am releasing the first…