Do you know the name of the first computer game?   I confess I didn't and I learned programming on a Univac 1100/62 so I am a lot closer to the origination date of computer games than most…

"It is in the realm of the public interest for society to help support our efforts," Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate and one of the co-chairs of Obama's Council of Advisors on Science…

Yours truly has been watching telly again!  (I hope no-one will get the idea that the couch potato might be a significant source of starch.)  This time, on our local BBC news service, we…

In doing some research for my next book (on the differences between science and pseudoscience), I re-read this rather stunning piece of writing: “Scientists these days tend to keep up a polite…

Has anyone else had that cold that lasts about three or four weeks? It's going around out here and I'm finally starting to get over it. Too bad I didn't know about the wonder flu cure Oscillococcinum…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is getting a new president as well: Nobel laureate Peter Agre. He tells the New York Times that scientists need to get involved as…

The dying light of the George W. Bush presidency was marked by, among other things, a legislative move to derail recent gains in the federal government's opening of science. In particular, the…

Cryptography isn't just for spies anymore - it's absolutely everywhere around us. Every time we use an ATM or buy something online we are sending data that we hope isn't intercepted on its way,…

I read this in today's Daily Telegraph: Campaigns to protect native species 'are racist' Have a read(LINK), and don't you think he is carrying things too far?  Although I have heard groundsmen…

Plants' ability to sprout upward using their own woody tissues has long been considered one of the characteristics separating the land kind from aquatic plants, which rely on water to support them.…

A newly developed mathematical model that figures out the best strategy to win the popular board game CLUE© could some day help robot mine sweepers navigate strange surroundings to find hidden…

Toxic nuclear waste is stored at sites around the U.S.  and debate surrounds the construction of a large-scale geological storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which critics maintain is…

If you have a 401K, you've seen what happens when confidence abandons the stock market.   If people didn't trust financial leaders and institutions before, they certainly do not now.  …

A new analysis confirms what we already knew - the evolutionary relationships among animals are not simple and the traditional idea that animal evolution has followed a trajectory from simple to…

Obama is playing good cop to Bush's bad cop, letting EPA know that his administration will not deny facts but be guided by them.Continuing efforts to overturn more of the last administration's…

From the designer Mark Weaver (Hat tip: Morbid Anatomy)

Stem cells are today’s panacea. They are greater than penicillin and vaccines combined, or so we hear. Research scientists have been touting the benefits and limitless medical possibilities of stem…

Mr Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Leprosy and Japanese Government Goodwill Ambassador for the Human Rights of People Affected by Leprosy, has called for an end to the…

Why have some of our genes evolved rapidly? It is widely believed that Darwinian natural selection is responsible, but research led by a group at Uppsala University suggests that a separate neutral…

Despite the fact that most of us see our four-legged friends walking around every day, most people (including many experts in natural history museums and illustrators for veterinary anatomy text…