Recent research says that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere and now a new study in the Journal of Environmental…

'True muonium' is a long-theorized but never-seen tiny atom that was first proposed more than 50 years ago.  True muonium, which unlike "muonium" (an atom made of an electron and an anti-muon)…

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.  - Richard Feynman I just read a neat HST result on dark matter on slashdot.org. I also enjoy…

This is going to be a rather long piece, so for the lazy and the absent-minded among you I decided to put together an executive summary at the top, and not at the bottom of the article as I usually…

Stick It In Your Ear!People's reports of inner mental processes are not considered to be reliable enough to validate theories.  (Some would say formulate, even.)  Such reports are only…

Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. This may even be a result, in part, of divergent neural responses. I don't know much about the science behind this…

SINCE WE INHERITED SCIENCE AND WE ARE PRETTY SURE NO ONE WHO STARTED IT IS STILL ALIVE, WHY KNOT BELIEVE ITS CREATORS KNEW THIS AND ADDED EXTRAS TO SCIENCE FOR THIS SOLE PURPOSE TOO!

The Art Of Torture More than 28 million Americans, and many more people throughout the world, suffer from migraine headaches, one of the most debilitating of pain disorders. Symptoms like…

A study published in the Lancet suggests that the number of children under 15 years of age with type 1 diabetes will rise to 160,000 in Europe by 2020, a relative increase of 70 percent from…

On the drive home yesterday afternoon I heard a fascinating story on NPR about an ecosystem near and dear to all humans - our skin. Even if bacteria aren't your thing, the story and the findings…

Scientists in Portugal and France managed to follow the patterns of gene expression in food-poisoning bacteria Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) live during infection for the first time. The…

More than a 100 groups of mammals have been found in the early Miocene (37 – 20 mya) John Day Formation that underlies the Mascall near Kimberly, north central Oregon. I'm planning a field trip this…

Rarely does a scientific hypothesis - at least, not a useful or an interesting one - admit of a straightforward up-or-down, yes-or-no verdict. Valuable hypotheses survive the test of time in…

The "new" section of experimental physics papers in the arxiv today features a preprint by the CDF collaboration, titled "First Observation of Vector Boson Pairs in a Hadronic Final State at the…

Like ethanol, the darling of activists who refused to know any better until it was actually implemented and shown to be a disaster, there is a certain amount of marketing hype around CFL bulbs and…

Which of the following Latin American countries has the highest murder rate? a. Nicaraguab. Mexicoc. Venezuelad. Jamaica If you answered "Mexico", you made a very reasonable choice. In the past year…

The Buzzword Blog #2 : What is a Buzzword? A buzzword is a word with a vague meaning, and which is commonly used in speech or writing to express a vague idea.  The buzzword category includes…

The first batch of newly designed Scientific Blogging logo stuff arrived today.   What do we have?   For biology writers, an excellent 'Lysis To Kill' logo.   For generally awesome…

DHS Begins Test of Biometric Exit Procedures at Two U.S. Airports, the next step toward deploying biometric exit procedures for international travelers. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS…

"The men are getting really angry and the women are a little too gleeful,” wrote New York Times columnist Lisa Belkin commenting on the overwhelming response she got for an article on a new…