You can think of it as the United Nations of knowledge - except no dictators wearing pistols are allowed to get up and spout nonsense.  Or you could think of it as the Wikipedia of knowledge,…

If  Airlines were armies, United and Lufthansa would be invincible. Their meals betray it -you know, the stronger an army, the worse the food it distributes. I am just out of a flight from…

I like Penn&Teller, the magicians and debunkers of pseudoscience and general inanity. I regularly use clips from their show in my critical reasoning class, despite cringing every time Penn…

Happy. punctuation day; everyone!1 1 Technically the 6th National Punctuation Day was yesterday, but I was still recovering from tuberculosis/black plague, so I'm a day late.

Euphorbia tirucalli L.: Family: Euphorbiaceae Genus: Euphorbia Species: tirucalli, insulana Common names: English: Indian tree spurge, Milk hedge, Petroleum-plant, aveloz, milk bush, pencil tree,…

The plants of family Euphorbiaceae are mostly monoecious herbs, shrubs, and trees, sometimes succulent and cactus-like. With about 300 genera and 7,500 species, Euphorbiaceae is one of the largest…

Biofuels According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory [NREL] (see http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_biofuels.html): “Unlike other renewable energy sources, biomass can be converted directly…

I'm torn.  There's two ways I would make a new smash video game, "Astronomy Hero". In the first, you are doing night observing runs, trying to accumulate enough light from each target while…

Okay, I know Michigan is practically an island, but that water is fresh, and there are no freshwater cephalopods (curious, yes? I will muse on that later!). So we can consider it landlocked from a…

If you want to solve big network security problems, sometimes it pays to think small - as in ants. A concept called 'swarm intelligence' adapts quickly to changing threats and it uses 'digital ants'…

No matter what their profession, all the letter writers behaved the same way. They adhered to a circadian cycle; they tended to write a number of letters at one sitting, which is more efficient; and…

You may feel like you're not in the same league as Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin (note: statistically, you are not)  but you probably share one thing if you are reading this article;…

The NIH has made public how often they fund grants below the payline. 18% of R01s scored below the nominal cutoff get funded anyway. A good chunk of those are grants from new investigators. This is…

Very sound advice from systems biologist Uri Alon: A common mistake made in choosing problems is taking the first problem that comes to mind. Since a typical project takes years even it if seems…

A biopharma is hoping to add to the deluge of drugs by the end of this year, but in virgin territory for the pharma industry. A new orphan indication? A disease that has previously been ignored? Nope…

Isolated hamlet in Indian forest gets electricity from seed-powered generator Deep in the tropical forests of southern India, the Kolam people were untouched by telephones, cars or television, and…

Biofuels with special reference to ecological impacts of biofuel cultivation Why Bio Diesel ? Many alternative Bio Diesel fuels have been shown to have better exhaust emissions than traditional…

On Tuesday, BBC News' Day In Pictures included a photo of a northern bottlenose whale, washed up dead on a beach in Southern England. (The bottlenose whale is a member of the beaked whale family,…

Well, now we know that spanking results in lower IQs for children than those that aren't spanked.  Of course, maybe once we figure out what IQ really means (if anything) this study might…

VEGETATION The vegetation of the area has been classified as “scrub jungle”. Plants which can either adapt themselves to high temperatures or to low temperatures and discouraging conditions of soil…