Not all fat is created equal, it seems. A Temple University study finds fat in obese patients is "sick" when compared to fat in lean patients. Why 'sick? When our bodies don't work properly, we say…

Despite investments, community goodwill and some good ideas, a vexing question remains in the age of school reform: Why has so much hope and effort led to disappointment? Beginning in the late 1980s,…

The latest research into dual-purpose contraceptives and non-hormonal contraception will be presented at the annual scientific conference of the Society for Reproductive Biology (SRB) conference in…

'Framing the debate' had its 15 minutes of fame, somewhere early in 2006, and since then has been revealed as little more than another word for 'spin' and, in a new study published in the journal…

Misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found in Palau appear to be an archaeologist's undoing, according to researchers at three institutions. They say that the so-called dwarfs…

You may not know "Daredevil" if you are not a comic book guy - the Ben Affleck movie certainly didn't endear him to most of the public. Daredevil lost his sight in an accident but, shortly after…

Scientific happenings, big and small, on this day in history… But first, today’s quiz: What event, which took place on this day in 1883, produced the most violent explosion known in human history?…

I usually limit my book reviews to Goodreads or Shelfari but this one deserves much more attention. In Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs; When Scientists Find What They're…

Rogue prefers his steak medium-well. But when it comes to sniffing out a rare plant, this dog performs work that’s very well done, indeed. The 4-year-old Belgian sheepdog is part of a Nature…

Five years ago, Edith had a problem: Her goldfish of 25 years, Mr. Fish, had dropsy, a disease characterized by a swollen or hollow abdomen and in most cases fatal. In her last attempt to save her…

Was Hippasus pushed? If you are even mildly interested in the history of mathematics, it is likely that you will have heard something like the following story. The Pythagoreans (who were also into…

Conservation zones, or 'No-take areas' (NTAs), that were set up to protect fish in the late 1960s and early 1970s are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global…

Contrary to stereotypes about masculinity, men interviewed in a large international study reported that being seen as honorable, self-reliant and respected was more important to their idea of…

Do babies says "mama" and "papa" because they recognize their parents or did those words become terms for parents because that's what babies first say? The human brain may be hard-wired to recognize…

How do galaxies form? The most widely accepted answer to this fundamental question is the model of 'hierarchical formation', a step-wise process in which small galaxies merge to build larger ones.…

Teaching evolution to a bunch of graduate students is easy; conveying something about evolution to a diverse group of high school students, some of whom have been coached to be openly hostile towards…

Hydrogen will be one of the most important fuels of the future, if it can be obtained by efficiently splitting water. Today the electrolysis of water is a very energy intensive process, making it…

A new study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University sheds light on why smokers' intentions to quit “cold turkey” often fizzle out within days or even hours.…

Is sleep essential? The answer seems obvious, since we all have to do it, but to a sleep scientist, the question of what constitutes sleep is so complex that scientists are still trying to define…

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) did not become extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens), says a research team that has shown that early stone tool…