Research by the University of Warwick shows how death gave birth to the modern cult of celebrity as the sudden rise in the popularity of obituaries of unusual people in the 1700s provided people with…

The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by…

A VHF radio interferometer system that was designed by Zhang GuangShu, et al of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute at Chinese Academy of Sciences was used to…

Yesterday, following a fifth orbit-raising maneuver, the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft successfully settled into a trajectory that will take it to the Moon.  After launch on 22 October, the…

In case you didn't know it, there's an election happening in America and it hasn't been called or conceded by anyone but only the staunchest Republican could have gone into this expecting a win.…

Transcription factors do a lot of things for us, like make arms and legs in the right places.  It turns out they may also make us go bald. We all know that being bald runs in families.…

An allergy refers to an exaggerated reaction by our immune systemin response to bodily contact with certain foreign substances. When anallergen comes in contact with the body, it causes the immune…

If you've already voted here in the US, or if you're not from the US and just burned out on US politics, here's a distraction: Basic Books' Feynman extravaganza - all of their products (of course),…

as for the ad code, this is how it is supposed to work:[11/3/2008 5:51:04 PM] S. Ruijsenaars says: for all pages that are not environment or energy: alternate: 1. 2. [11/3/2008 5:51:15 PM] S…

Aristotle figured out pretty early on that human beings are by their nature constantly pulled by two opposing forces: on the one hand their propensity to go after immediate rewards, even though they…

We all know that high cholesterol is associated with the possibility of diabetes, but what about a connection between triglyceride levels and obesity? It may seem far fetched, but conducting a simple…

Awww. Isn't this squirrel just so cute? You might think that now, but stare long enough at the beady eye of this Eastern Fox Squirrel (Family Sciuridae : Sciurus niger Linnaeus), and you'll see that…

It took less than a decade for native rats to become extinct on the Indian Ocean's previously uninhabited Christmas Island once Eurasian black rats jumped ship onto the island at the turn of the 20th…

Any time science  terms become colloquial, it leads to problems.    How often does someone make a speculation and call it a 'theory'?   Cars supposedly 'evolve' if their…

In Optimizing The University - Why We Need a New Educational Model For A New Century I laid out some of the issues facing post-secondary science education and how changing student demographics and…

It seems that our brain can correct speech errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behavior, say Niels Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research…

The Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados en Nanociencia (IMDEA Nanoscience) and the University of Hamburg have collaborated on the development of composite materials based on semiconductor…

In the near future it will be possible to customize the food we eat  based on the genetic profile of the individual. Dutch researcher Amber Ronteltap suggests that the consumer market is not yet…

Hydrogen is an ideal solution for cars of the future.   The problem remains storage.   People have a range they want to go (300 miles) before an automobile enhancement can become…

A robot rover designed by a Bremen university team has won an ESA contest to retrieve soil samples from a lunar-style terrestrial crater. Eight student teams fielded rovers during the event, their…