Human rights abuses are commonly associated with despotic, totalitarian regimes, not with weak and failing states. But Professor Neil Englehart’s recent study of 140 nations suggests that weak states…

Tetris stole hundreds of hours of our lives.  It’s about time it starts giving back.  Researchers at the Washington University of St. Louis have built a computer simulation that uses a…

We have just finished the second version of our environmental database. This database includes not only our own published work but hundreds of publications regarding Salmon, Habitat, Climate Change,…

New Scientist magazine has posted an eight-part article titled “Eight things you didn’t know about the internet”. As someone who knows about the Internet, I thought I’d comment on the various parts.…

  Recently I had the opportunity to ask Paul Ewald, one of the nation's leading evolutionary biologists, about a subject near and dear to his heart: the evolution of a bug, specifically swine…

Recently I had the opportunity to ask Paul Ewald, one of the nation's leading evolutionary biologists, about a subject near and dear to his heart: the evolution of a bug, specifically swine flu. As…

Monday afternoon the space shuttle Atlantis blasted off into the Florida sky carrying with it the hopes and dreams of astronomers like me and people around the world.  Seven NASA astronauts have…

To study small RNA, snippets of RNA that act as switches to regulate gene expression in single-celled creatures, you need lab-cultured microorganisms but a new method of obtaining marine microbe…

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has begun its search for other Earth-like worlds. The mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 6, will spend the next three-and-a-half years staring at…

A bowl of whole-grain cereal is as good as a sports drink for recovery after exercise. Research published in BioMed Central’s open access Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition has…

2008 excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany recovered a female figurine carved from mammoth ivory from the basal Aurignacian deposit. The figurine is the earliest…

You probably envision ocean currents as a 'conveyor belt'  - that's okay, so do oceanographers.  But at least in the Atlantic, it doesn't work quite the way scientists have believed,…

Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the immunological effects of ginseng, say researchers writing in the Journal of Translational Medicine.  Their studies show that the herb, much used in…

Researchers in condensed matter physics at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago have created an experimental and computer model to study how jamming, the physical process in…

A new report published in Cell says that a heart beat and blood circulation are critical signals for the production of blood-forming, or hematopoietic, stem cells in the developing embryo. The…

New research sheds light on how cocaine regulates gene expression in a crucial reward region of the brain to elicit long-lasting changes in behavior. The study in Neuron provides insight into the…

The recent Star Trek movie raised a new set of conundrums about time travel and alternative realities. As an astrophysicist, I am clearly most able to tackle these issues. Basically, time travel…

Perhaps Hank is the smartest guy in the room (so was Enron), but while he and Bloggy are taking Manhattan (as did the Muppets, although apparently not well if it needs to be taken again), Teddy and I…

The journal Evolution: Education and Outreach has a great piece on the evolution of whales, complete with pictures. As the piece says, "cetacean origin is one of the best known examples of…

Scott Altman is a pretty cool guy.   He's the commander of the Atlantis mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (and, as noted previously, astronaut John Grunsfeld is also carrying along…