We're always trying to keep the 'footprint' of the site pretty small while maintaining as much functionality as possible.    You've all seen 'new' versions of lots of sites that seem to add…

Dengue fever is a nasty disease found all over the tropics, with names like break-bone fever referring to the severity of the pain it causes.  It is carried mostly by the mosquito Aedes aegypti,…

People who have survived severe trauma such as events during war, torture or sexual assault can experience after-effects, a condition called posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The symptoms may…

A solution to the puzzle which came to be known as ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ has been uncovered by scientists at the University of Oxford in a paper published in the Journal of the Geological Society. …

Orientation is a puzzle to neuroscience researchers and ever more puzzling to us.   If you've ever been lost, or even just in a strange place, you know the feeling of mild panic.  But once…

Many of the battles to desegregate buses, water fountains and colleges were fought in public but some were virtually unknown and are just now getting attention.   A new University of Georgia…

 Today's underwater acoustic communication relies on scalar sensors to measure the pressure of the acoustic field. However, "a vector sensor is capable of measuring important non-scalar…

I got this notification from the NSF so I thought I would pass it along - obviously I didn't write it but it's not something we would put in an article and it's too long for a corkboard message.…

Once upon a time, I worked in an office that had a beat-up, steel bookcase in the break room.  This was our unofficial lending library, where anyone could drop off a book they had read and were…

Here at the University of Reading, the good folks of the Association for Science Education have been holding their annual conference, and RU staff members like myself are invited to participate. The…

Adam Drewnowski, director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle,  says that an ongoing recession will lead to even more obesity.    Drewnowski…

Picture: Sundog on the right, the Sun on the left. Picture was taken in Finland, Lahti  3.1.2008. Sundogs exist, when there is ice in atmosphere which reflects the Sun light. The…

"Raw materials were not an issue" for the evolution of the first life on earth, argues Henderson Cleaves, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution, quoted in Carl Zimmer's Science essay on origins of…

In my last article, I ended with the observation that: While we cannot reject Cook's scientific contribution simply on thebasis of his embrace of racist pseudoscience, we also can't simplyignore it…

6 newly discovered genes for obesity have a neural effect, according to the international GIANT (Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Parameters) consortium. So far, the scientists have analyzed…

Nanotechnology exploits the properties of materials on a nanometric scale, (a nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter). The ultimate limit for such miniaturization is the development of devices…

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is a global celebration of astronomy and its contribution to society and culture, with strong emphasis on education, public participation, and the…

South America is the world’s most species-rich area and there have been many theories as to why, ranging from animals and plants accompanying the continent when it broke loose from Africa to…

When Charles Darwin published his landmark book On the Origin of Species(*) in 1859, his theories on evolution were quickly accepted by the vast majority of scientists. The general public, however,…

In 1609, 400 years ago, Galileo revolutionized humankind's understanding of our position in the Universe when he used a telescope for the first time to study the heavens and sketched radical new…