When I say 'stop eating chocolate or you may die' it is in theory, as there have been no recorded cases that I could find, so generally you need not worry. Thus, if you are sure you’re human you…

    Proton Therapy (PT) is a high-quality radiation therapy and initially used to treat  human patients in Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. For about 50 years of its use in treating…

In considering some of the comments made on the original posting, I realized that there were some variations and refinements in discussing supply and demand that warranted additional consideration.…

Last month New York’s Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo criticized banks – including Citi, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase – for paying large (okay, huge) executive…

What would you do with 3/4 of a kilogram of gear in space? For the price of a Harley-Davidson Sportster 883, you can now go to space. InterOrbital Systems (IOS) has announced their TubeSat Personal…

Organic solar cells that can be produced easily and inexpensively are the perfect solution to future 'personalized' power generation.   Major obstacles remain, such as coaxing these carbon-based…

There's an irrational belief held by some about economics that if a technology is subsidized, the magic of capitalism will make it cheaper even though there being no benefit to consumers or industry…

Researchers at the University of California Riverside (UCR) have developed a new mid-season maturing variety of tangerine. They call it DaisySL, for for Daisy seedless. It is made from an irradiated…

Electromagnetic radiation (light, radio waves, X-rays, and microwaves) contains a varying electric field. When we talk about Polarization of this field, we refer to its direction. A new satellite…

Professor Declan Murphy and colleagues Dr. Michael Craig and Dr. Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London say they have found differences in the brain which may provide…

The Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology lists three cases of patients suffering from the adverse affects of steroid-enriched dietary supplements.  The cases reported by researchers at Henry…

Bertrand Russell was frequently abused as a child by his parents and elders with the titling piece of snark to this blog entry. While not a particular Russell fan (though he was a spectacularly clear…

Readers familiar with this blog know that I am a die-hard skeptic on the issue of physics beyond the Standard Model. However, today I am wearing my fluctuation-enthusiast hat, and I will be trying to…

In reading some posts regarding health care reform, someone made a comment that struck me as unusual regarding the pharmaceuticals, namely that they had a right to make a profit too. What an…

Researchers believe they have located the original source of malignant malaria; a parasite in chimpanzees of equatorial Africa.  The biologists think the deadly parasite was transmitted to…

Our cells are controlled by billions of molecular 'switches' that react to our environment.  All creatures, from bacteria to humans, must monitor their environments in order to survive. They do…

People who engage in 'brain exercise' activities, like reading, writing, and playing card games, may delay the rapid memory decline that occurs if they later develop dementia, according to a study…

A new class of antibody drugs may help in treatment of childhood eye diseases but specialists need to be alert for the possibility of serious side effects, according to an editorial in the August…

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is an insulating gas.  Hydrogen is also the simplest of the elements: it contains one proton and one electron.  But at high pressures…

Like Goldilocks and her porridge, people today want their food to be perfect.   But when you look at something like a pineapple in a supermarket, how do you know what's 'just ripe' and what is…