Welcome to what has become Inadvertent Cicada Week in this column.  Obviously, I'm fascinated by them.  This started around the summer of 2003, when I was completely addicted to a certain…

The Oyster's Garter ("Science served wet and salty" - and I'm sure you can take that to mean whatever you want) is hosting the latest, greatest edition of Carnival of Evolution. Read about genetic…

LOS ANGELES (April 2, 2009) – Those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often complain that exercise is too exhausting and leaves them breathless. An article in the current…

Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing the first high-resolution image of the young binary system Theta1 Orionis C, located in the Orion Trapezium cluster. This image was obtained by a team of…

Milan, Italy, 2 April 2009 - In a study conducted by the Laboratory of Neuropsychology of the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie and published by Elsevier in the April 2009 issue of Cortex (http:/…

Philadelphia, PA, 2 April 2009 – Treatment with the glitazone class of diabetes drugs leads to a "modest" increase in the risk of diabetic macular edema (DME)—a common complication that can lead to…

A couple's sexual orientation determines whether or not they prefer to adopt a boy or a girl. Gay men are more likely to have a gender preference for their adopted child whereas heterosexual men are…

Michael Avidan, George Mashour and David Glick highlight the serious issue of awareness during anaesthesia in a recent review published by F1000 Medicine Reports. Consciousness during general…

FAIRFAX, Va.—Due to regional conflicts across the globe, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, women are being deployed overseas in greater numbers than ever before.…

Life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia can be a consequence of myocarditis – an inflammation of the cardiac muscle that can be caused by the Coxsackievirus. In mice, Dr. Yu Shi, Chen Chen, and Professor…

Sun Reaches Quietest Solar Minimum Since 1913 Blankest years of the last century? I have seen some really good examples of making the data fit the curve, but this has to be the best ever. …

I find myself fascinated how similar people, with similar values, can feel so differently about social engineering.  This comes out in political discourse, and certainly is a hot topic today,…

     In the summer of 1981, a colleague at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountainview, California, gave me a small black stone wrapped in aluminum foil that changed the course of my…

Scientists, this is your future research partner.    A 'Robot Scientist' named Adam has been created and the group behind it believe it is the first machine to have independently discovered…

Yes, Charles Darwin did important things for science, but what we really want to know is how he squandered his money as a student.    Did he drink and smoke a lot?   Yeah, actually,…

Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers.    Most colors in…

If you’ve ever been sleep-deprived, you know how it correlates to baseball and the feeling that your brain is batting below the Mendoza Line and you just aren't seeing the ball very well.  …

Long before they became famous as barbaric raiders, Vikings played nice with British and Irish culture, according to findings at a recent Cambridge University conference. The conference, entitled…

Smokers who do not want to quit right now but would like to at least reduce their smoking are twice as likely to stop smoking in the long-term if they use nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to help…

Some of the symptoms of the autistic condition Asperger Syndrome, such as a need for routine and resistance to change, could be linked to levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research…