Recently, I was discussing the relative virtues of four-door and two-door cars with a friend. I prefer four-door cars, because they make it much easier for back-seat passengers to get in and out…

Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well.- Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner, p. 15

The Beauty of Justice Some celebrities use their status to promote the most idiotic ideas. Fortunately, there are many more, who use that status to help make the world a better place.   In…

'Adaptation to exercise' is a familiar phenomenon, even if the phrase is not: A sedentary person takes up jogging and can barely make it around the block. After jogging regularly for a few weeks, the…

A lack of Vitamin D, due to reduced sunlight, has been linked to depression and the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but research by the University of Warwick shows there is no clear…

Researchers trying to uncover the mechanisms that cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder have found an abnormality in the brains of adolescent boys suffering from the…

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification –…

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification –…

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification –…

It is the concentration of a few signaling molecules that determines the fate of individual cells during the early development of organisms, say a team of molecular biologists writing in Current…

Systems biology is a trendy field right now, but, despite the fact that it's hyped as some amazing, new, holistic approach to biology, the questions systems biologists are asking aren't new. Check…

At this point it will be useful to examine some of the selection pressures that will also affect a species. The obvious ones are the need for resources to maintain the day-to-day activities…

Last Tuesday CDF announced their own discovery of the Omega_b baryon, a measurement which creates a controversy with the competing experiment at the Tevatron collider, DZERO. That is because DZERO…

HIV/AIDS has left its mark on mankind.   Millions of people have been lost to a disease that seems so uniquely designed to tear down our defenses and ruin us, the Barbarians to our Roman Empire.…

Over the years, some global opinion surveys and analysts have estimated that as many as 10% of Muslims worldwide hold violent extremist religious views. A recent polling study by the Gallup…

In exploring some of the biological issues surrounding selfishness and altruism, invariably the philosophical issue of selfishness surfaces. Ayn Rand has argued that selfishness is a virtue because…

Erik Weihenmayer wears sunglasses often. He was wearing them to protect his eyes when he reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in 1997. He had them on when he completed the 2003 Primal Quest, the…

The birth of twins is a genetic oddity in itself - only happening in about one out of  every 90 births.  But adding a large twist of unexpected to an already unlikely event - this week it…

"I seldom enjoy competition in real life. I find it fun only when I am up against somebody who takes things more seriously than I do." QDS

In 1988, Günter Wächtershäuser published a remarkable idea that excited tremendous interest, even being featured in a Scientific American article. It ran counter to prevailing ideas about the origin…