If changing the batteries in the remote control or smoke detector seems like a chore, imagine having to change hundreds of batteries in sensors scattered across a busy bridge.  That's why Kansas…

Black holes?  Maybe we should think of them as donut holes. The shape of material around black holes has been seen for the first time: an analysis of over 200 active galactic nuclei—cores of…

During launch into orbit, a satellite is exposed to a number of extreme stresses. At takeoff the extremely strong engine vibrations are transmitted via the launcher structure to the satellite, which…

Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and…

Dinosaur hunters on a month-long expedition to the Sahara desert have returned home in time for Christmas with more than they ever dreamed of finding.  They have unearthed not one but two…

Rocky Mountain ski areas face dramatic changes this century as the climate warms, says a new Colorado study. The study indicates snowlines -- elevations below which seasonal snowpack will not develop…

Schizophrenia and autism probably share a common origin, according to Dutch researcher Annemie Ploeger following an extensive literature study. The developmental psychologist says that both mental…

Since the early 1960s, it's become fashionable to use scare tactics about food and food groups to generate publicity and generate fundraising dollars.   The DDT mistake is forgivable but Alar?…

Neuroscientists from Duke University Medical Center have discovered that older people use their brains differently than younger people when it comes to storing memories, particularly those associated…

Parents of children with intellectual disabilities have long been frustrated by intelligence quotient (IQ) testing that tells them little to nothing about the long-term learning potential of their…

New technology is often called 'the wave of the future' but it couldn't be any more literal in the case of wave energy.  Wave energy can be a large, widespread renewable resource that is…

The redox-active pigments responsible for the blue-green stain of the mucus that clogs the lungs of children and adults with cystic fibrosis (CF) are primarily signaling molecules that allow large…

Unparalleled warming over the last few decades has triggered widespread ecosystem changes in many temperate North American and Western European lakes, say researchers at Queen's University and the…

Raw milk advocates claim that unpasteurized milk cures or prevents disease, but no scientific evidence supports this notion. Testing raw milk, which has been suggested as an alternative to…

I just saw on Discover.com a blog post that almost made me wish I was teaching Chemistry again.....almost.  It's about some scientists who have been making a Periodic Table of Videos- a very…

An editor at Nature discusses the internet and the ethics of science communication (PDF). The paper doesn't turn out to be much of a discussion of science communication on the web - the piece ends up…

Millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at once should be enough to tear anything apart, including atomic nuclei. But ever since observations of a solar flare from NASA's STEREO spacecraft…

A little of this and a little of that today... I had just clicked "save" to publish my blog and the internet closed without warning, so this is an abbreviated version of my abbreviated blog. Two…

As a former dog owner and dog lover, I was not really surprised by last week's report that dogs have been found to "sense inequity", a.k.a. be jealous of the dog that's being treated better than they…

Chemistry is wonderful. Chemistry now has to play more than ever an interdisciplinary role for new visions. Here are two wonderful studies that I caught singing to me in 2008. Both contain elegant…