A fascinating development has emerged in the forensic testing of controlled substances. A "white box" study aimed at establishing error rates for this commonly-practiced forensic discipline is…

It’s so good to see some climate scientists at last starting to speak up about the awful over the top things Extinction Rebellion activists are saying, though I wish more would speak up and speak up…

In the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Leo Tolstoy presents a man who is shocked by suddenly realising that his death is inevitable. While we can easily appreciate that the diagnosis of a…

Writers are going to find a way to make their work topical. The most important article I ever wrote (in my estimation), in the Wall Street Journal, came out about five weeks after I wrote it, and…

Last month, Indonesia’s previous Minister of Research and Technology boasted that in 2019, Indonesia had overtaken Malaysia and Singapore in the number of published academic articles. However,…

This is not a high quality paper, it's riddled with errors. It should never have been on mainstream news or on TV. Those 11,000 scientists are not authors - they are just signatories and one of them…

Exercise is recommended for people who are overweight or obese as a way to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But people don’t always have time to exercise as…

I didn't see "Star Wars" when I was in theaters the first time. We were poor and living in rural Pennsylvania and never went to a movie as a family, but I did see it when it was re-released in 1981,…

I didn't see "Star Wars" when I was in theaters the first time. We were poor and living in rural Pennsylvania and never went to a movie as a family, but I did see it when it was re-released in 1981,…

How do solar panels work? – Nathan, age 5, Melbourne, Australia. The Sun produces a lot of energy called solar energy. Australia gets 20,000 times more energy from the Sun each day than we do from…

In 2014, the world's top polluter, China, told the United States president they unequivocally  would not even discuss emissions caps or targets until 2030 and American speechwriters quickly…

In 1605, England’s parliament was sitting on a powder keg, literally. Like now, the country was bitterly divided between two factions, with religion at the heart of the schism after the Reformation…

This is running with click bait titles suggesting massively more people are at risk of sea level flooding than before. But it’s just better elevation maps. The sea level rise is the same but more…

This is the first day that countries can give their one year notification to leave the Paris agreement. It's no surprise that the US has given notification. But he is not speaking for the city of…

In February, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a bombastic press release to announce its 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility was going to to…

Living in an organized society means we usually abide by unwritten rules of conduct, in addition to avoiding breaking state laws. We can then rely on order to prevail over chaos, kindness to…

I am a big believer in meritocracy. I live in an Intel town and they feel like they make the best processor because groups are competing to have the best design, just like Saturday Night Live writers…

I am a big believer in meritocracy. I live in an Intel town and they feel like they make the best processor because groups are competing to have the best design, just like Saturday Night Live writers…

It's November of 2019 which means that we have officially arrived at the opening of the science fiction cult classic "Blade Runner." Let's talk about what it got right. I was at a local theater…

Ferguson Hill contains the most complete macrofossil record spanning the Triassic-Jurassic boundary in North America. The ammonoids from the uppermost Triassic can be traced to the boundary and the…