The Higgs field isn't the only thing the LHC might unearth.  A while back Sean Carroll posted a great discussion of other possibilities including supersymmetry, dark matter and something not yet…

A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than…

According to a recent study, diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids protect the liver from damage caused by obesity and the insulin resistance it provokes. This research should give doctors and…

To astrobiologists, hot springs hold a great deal of significance.   Many of the most ancient organisms on Earth thrived in and around hydrothermal springs and their modern descendants still do.…

Aerosols are fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. Sources of human-generated aerosols include industry, motor vehicles and vegetation burning. Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms…

The interesting thing about being in a meeting like this is seeing some outstanding science and then seeing something that makes you wonder if people really know what they are doing.   Day 2 was…

Shortly after the Second World War, the famous naturalist, Gerald Durrell, was collecting animals in Cameroon.  While he generally got on well with the locals wherever he went, one frustration…

--- ---WARNING--- --- THIS IS RAW UNEDITED CONTENT --- it essentially amounts to stream of conscious and I have not gone back over it since I wrote it. I have included it because it contains some…

A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed…

Research performed in the Center for Biomolecular Science&Engineering (CBSE) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that mobile repetitive elements--also known as transposons or…

AAAS bills its annual meeting as 'the world's largest general science conference', which sounds just narrow enough to be true and since I am a patron member and we're a science community (indeed, we…

In all the hype surrounding the Large Hadron Collider during the last few years, it was easy to miss the fact that low energy physics was still accomplishing a lot - and that no one was sure what the…

I recently spoke to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher about her groundbreaking work on the chemical basis of our personality and its influence on who we fall in love with.  As it turns…

Just a little weekend tidbit, art from the science world. Sometimes, during talks, I'll see art where others see just a data or figure. Here are two cases from a recent conference that I love.…

The Brits are always thinking ahead and we could learn a thing or two from them on this side of the pond.   Those cheeky blokes are ditching pricey baubles in favor of if-we-keep-printing-money…

I am a firm believer in the possibility and promise of embryonic stem cells. In a politically, religiously and even scientifically charged climate, this is a risky thing to announce. But as a…

Today, of all days, anything is possible. The laws of man and god are subverted by that of Murphy. This day is made doubly potent by its placement before the geek's darkest day of the year: Valentine…

Neandertals were the closest relatives of currently living humans. They lived in Europe and parts of Asia until they became extinct about 30,000 years ago. For more than a hundred years,…

A York University research team has tracked the migration of songbirds,  the most common type of bird in our skies, by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks – a world first and…

Adaptation is one of the driving forces behind evolution, along with selection and the appearance of new species, say a group of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München researchers, but they say that…