How Can Ice Work Like A Horse? In this short series of articles about coal, engines and energy I am trying to show something of  the history behind our current knowledge of heat, energy and…

Administration Support for Biofuels is Part of a Bigger Policy Need February 4th, 2010 Goto comments Leave a comment President Obama and members of his Biofuels Interagency Working Group are to be…

This just in: Carl Brannen (here his blog) got a paper on gravitation published in a scientific magazine. Carl, who is the typical amateur who many "established scientists" in the blogosphere have…

Oh criminy, are we still confused? Didn't we go over this like a zillion times? Wasn't Deep-Sea News' excellent primer on how Humboldt Squid are Not The Same Thing as Giant Squid clear enough? Sigh.…

I wrote this letter in response to his1 December 19 column. The letter sank without a trace, despite that it was admirably concise and pithy - if I do say so myself. Sir - Schumpeter's defense of…

“Turning back the clock” isn’t just about cosmetic fixes any more – it is also about keeping our minds sharp.  To that end, we’ve sought to prevent mental decline through diet and a series of…

Here is an idea for a new energy policy: teach people what energy is and where it comes from. Whether or not you think human activity is effecting global climate change, whether we should drill-baby…

I am convinced that we can discover, by means of purely mathematical constructions, those concepts and those lawful connections between them which furnish the key to the understanding of natural…

Ramesh loses cool as Bt Brinjal consultation generates heat Buzz Up Share Twitter Delicious Myspace Digg Stumble Upon Facebook Sat, Feb 6 06:11 PM Chaos, anger, repartees and some scientific…

Any 600 million productrion of Jatropha would need involvement of all those who have worked for years in DBT projects and developed accessions and high yielding plants. (Kumar 2008)

You can get it by going to the Insert menu and choosing Object…, and the selecting Microsoft Equation.        

Dirty Coal And Boring Science There was a time when, through the proliferation of steam power, coal extraction in vast quantities became economically viable.  Throughout the U.K. coal was burned…

"Quidquid oritur, qualecumque est, causam habet a natura. Cum autem res nova et admirabilis fieri videtur, causam invetigato, si poteris, ratione confisus. Si nullam causam reperis, illud tamen…

Marc Cenedella has excavated an old resume of da Vinci, the very definition of 'renaissance man' and  'genius'.  At the time, da Vinci was applying to work for the Duke of Milan. Wired UK…

Clogged arteries everywhere are taking sides in the sure-to-be epic battle for your cholesterol-induced death. The Phoenix Sun Times opens the article with the following paragraph: "A battle of the…

To see the future, you must know the past: these nine words nicely summarize a syllogism which knows few exceptions. Turning to known data to check the power of one's extrapolations is a quite well…

How To Model A Smoking Gun Conspiracy theorists just love to get hold of a piece of new information and claim that it is the 'smoking gun'  that 'conclusively proves' their pet theory.  The…

Researchers have developed a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor. The new…

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches play an important role in cell division. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and…

Conventional wisdom says that children who are especially sensitive to stress are more vulnerable to adversity and have more behavior and health problems than their peers. But a new study in the…