I’m fascinated by the contributions of researchers outside of the mainstream— the monk whose bean garden seeded modern genetics, the bicycle mechanic brothers who built a flying machine in their…

FOXP2 may be the gene that makes us human - or so the hype goes. Hyped or not, FOXP2 is rightly a focus of intense research, since it is a gene that clearly has a major effect on human speech.…

If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance 'God'.    - Jerry Coyne, Nature, Sep. 19, 1996

"Somebody's got to stand up to experts," cried the creationist head of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy. McLeroy's lament is nothing new in American culture - we love to lionize the…

The key issue in considering competition is the question of whether changes in resource availability or mates would alter the confrontation. If the answer is negative, then no competition can be said…

The Buzzword Blog #1 Invent your own ism! Sometimes the natural grammar of the English language can permit an excessive freedom in the coinage of new words and terms.  For example, there is a…

"Berlusconi in his life had about twenty wives, two of whom were his" Roberto Benigni

Many parasites depend on their host’s behavior in order to successfully reproduce. Instead of leaving this behavior to chance, some parasites actively manipulate their hosts to produce the desired…

VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) researchers linked to K.U.Leuven and Harvard University say they have shown that stretches of DNA previously believed to be useless 'junk' DNA play a…

Oxidative stress has been linked to aging, cancer and other diseases in humans. Paradoxically, researchers have suggested that small exposure to oxidative conditions may actually offer protection…

Scientists at the University of Leeds say they have uncovered a previously unknown giant volcanic eruption.   And it's no ordinary eruption, they say - it led to global mass extinction 260…

Even if we don't always notice, our brain is constantly distracted with 'noise' - unimportant messages that are filtered out.    When we pay attention, our neurons begin firing in harmony…

Biomedical engineers at Boston University have taught bacteria how to count.  The researchers have wired a new sequence of genes that allow the microbes to count discrete events, opening the…

How common is scientific misconduct?   It's a tough question to answer.   Scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk's faked stem-cell lines or Jon Sudbø's made-up cancer trials have demonstrated that…

Researchers using data from NASA's THEMIS mission have pinpointed the impact epicenter of an earthbound space storm as it crashes into the atmosphere - and given an advance warning of its arrival.…

The joint Japan-U.S. Suzaku mission is providing new insight into how assemblages of thousands of galaxies pull themselves together and, for the first time, Suzaku has detected X-ray-emitting gas at…

A team of physicists and engineers have demonstrated all-fibre quantum logic, where single photons are generated and used to perform the contolled-NOT quantum logic gate in optical fibers with high…

The Moving Finger WritesI cannot agree that much of what is, these days, called poetry, is in fact poetry.I base that assessment on a simple rule: If it isn't memorable, it isn't poetry, q.e.d.…

If you watched "Angels&Demons" recently, you may have thought particle physics was just about scary science that could do real harm on the chance it may do future good.   Not so, though most…

Five-fold symmetry is considered to be impossible in crystallography for the same reason that pentagonal tiles do not exist - it is not possible to cover a floor or wall simply using tiles with five…