According to a 2007 press release by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, every year 33.1 million people are injured by consumer products in the home. No one is safe and constant vigilance is…

Female ducks can thank evolution for avoiding becoming impregnated by undesirable but aggressive males endowed with large corkscrew-shaped penises: vaginas with clockwise spirals that thwart…

Stars in globular clusters tend to be 12-13 billion years old but a small fraction appear to be significantly younger than the average population.   Left behind by the stars that followed the…

(Hopefully 1st in a series of molecular biology topics, explained)                        Let’s face it –…

As 2009 closes, we can look at the state of sci-fi gaming.  You might wonder why a science site cares, and the answer is that science fiction is one of the best gateways to science careers.…

A recent study described in the article "Music Linked to Marijuana Use" illustrates just how badly science can run off the tracks. One of the more telling aspects of the study indicated that the…

Kim Peek, the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's character in "Rain man" died Saturday, Dec 19th 2009 at age 58, after suffering a major heart attack. A truly fascinating individual, Kim was classified…

India says to better cuts in gas emissions growth Buzz Up Share Twitter Delicious Myspace Digg Stumble Upon Facebook Tue, Dec 22 06:42 PM Enlarge Photo A man walks in front of a garbage…

Global warming may be a reality, but the debate over what causes the warming and what to do about it is nowhere near over, according to a story in the latest issue of Chemical&Engineering News (C…

Scientists have identified a strain of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis that thrives in the presence of rifampin, a front-line drug in the treatment of tuberculosis. The bacterium was identified in…

More than a hundred years after its discovery, the limbs and vertebrae of a fossil have been pulled off the shelf at the American Museum of Natural History to revise the view of early carnivore…

 Researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the CDC in Atlanta, GA have discovered how the smallpox virus kills. In a study published in the FASEB Journal, the team says that the…

Young people who want to be better appreciated and respected within their group are willing to be violent, says a new study that looked in depth at the social relationships between male and…

 Teens who frequently listen to music filled with references to marijuana are more likely to use the drug than their counterparts with less exposure to such lyrics, according to a University of…

I think this may be the best pop-sci treatment of the jumbo squid invasion that I've seen yet. Go, Christian Science Monitor! For example, most invasion articles don't take the time to explain the…

Old Scientists Dominate Funding I've written about this multiple times before, but it's never to soon to visit the skewed age distribution of NIH grants, via Marginal Revolution: Paul Romer is…

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em.” It’s an old adage that every experienced poker player knows. The main goal is to play the game successfully and maximize your profits. …

            Darkness. It has often been portrayed to us as a symbol of fear, evil or just plain emptiness. But surprisingly, darkness is also essential,…

The Wrong Kind of Snow has struck again.  As this New Scientist article relates, on the 6th of February 1991, trains in South-Eastern England were brought to a halt.  When British Rail…

We have ten fingers and ten toes (or, most of us do. Exceptions include the noted alpinist Reinhold Messner, who has only three toes and seven fingers. Luckily, this leaves him with ten total digits…