We don't have ten years, as Al Gore predicted in 2006, dangerous levels of carbon dioxide are already here, say 10 scientists, and the level of globe-warming carbon dioxide in the air has probably…

A new study by researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center suggests that the incidence of heterosexual anal sex is increasing among teens and young adults – particularly those who…

by Diane Banegas, National Science Foundation Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are studying a remarkable species of bacteria, Geobacter sulfurreducens, that produces electric…

This is why women should just stay in the kitchen and leave the real work to the men. (I'm still bitter about being told in 1997 by a construction foreman that I hammer like a girl.) A spacewalking…

Imagine a future for ice cubes that burn, it may sounds impossible but gas hydrates are an alternate energy source said to put every other fossil fuel to shame. Gas Hydrates are an ice-like solid…

A couple of years ago I co-taught a course in philosophy and science with a colleague in the Philosophy department at Stony Brook University. At some point the issue of “human nature” came up, and my…

Sometimes, you have to read between the lines. As a columnist, I receive a host of press releases that fill up my mailbox with mostly unintelligible medical jargon which mostly amounts to nothing.…

Not so long ago, geneticists considered the vast stretches of non-coding regions in DNA to be “junk,” nothing more than the remnants of our evolutionary history. If it wasn’t a traditional gene, and…

With apologies to Jonathan Eisen for encroaching on his annoyance specialty, here is yet another case of science via press release. Big hop forward: Scientists map kangaroo's DNA Taking a big…

BEATNIKS   &   DREAMACHINES Almost fifty years ago, the beat poet Brion Gysin (1916 - 1986), described a visual hallucination that he experienced while riding a bus: ...Had a…

This is the topic of a recent Telegraph Blog (here) by Daniel Hannan, a Member of the European Parliament. The Hedgehog would like to know, WHAT SORT OF SCIENCE should the "some" be?  Any…

Move over, Malibu - ancient Mars may take the solar system's top beachfront destination prize. It possibly had not just one ocean, but two! An older, wiser ocean, surrounding a younger version that…

For those of you who are interested in Brion Gysin's Dreamachine, the following was borrowed from our friends at Wikipedia: In its original form, a dreamachine is made from a cylinder with slits cut…

Ivan Oransky, managing editor of Scientific American online, was one of the judges for Nikon's Small World contest: "Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of serving as one of several judges for the…

In a study I dub “Are you powerful or not?” I’d be in a third category. Why? Because I felt insulted when instructed to do what researchers asked of students. At Northwestern and Stanford, no less.…

Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.…

A review of previously published studies suggests that rates of adverse outcomes for mothers or pregnant women and newborn babies, such as gestational diabetes and low birth weight, may be lower…

New research has traced elevated levels of a specific compound in the brain called kynurenic acid to problem-solving deficits in patients with schizophrenia. The finding suggests that drugs used to…

The powerful black holes at the center of massive galaxies and galaxy clusters act as hearts to the systems, pumping energy out at regular intervals to regulate the growth of the black holes…

A little bit of stress apparently lasts a long time, say neuroscientists from the University of Washington.  They have found that a single exposure to uncontrollable stress impairs decision…