"Random lasers" are not what chooses the songs in your CD player in shuffle mode, they are a class of microlasers which use the principle of random light scattering as an integral part of the their…

A study of 90,000 people has uncovered new genetic variants that influence fat mass, weight and risk of obesity. The variants act in addition to the recently described variants of the FTO gene:…

Parents of children with autism were roughly twice as likely to have been hospitalized for a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, than parents of other children, according to an analysis of…

The genome analysis of a champion biomass-degrading fungus has revealed a surprisingly minimal repertoire of genes that it employs to break down plant cell walls, highlighting opportunities for…

A process of self-digestion called autophagy prompts the maturation of red blood cells. Without a protein called Nix, the cells would not effectively rid themselves of organelles called mitochondria…

Cross-sectional studies, which collect information at a single point in time, generally find that young Americans report having more lifetime alcohol problems than older Americans, despite having had…

Leptospirosis is a serious but neglected emerging disease that infects humans through contaminated water. It is a major public health problem in South East Asia and South America, with over 500,000…

"No Child Left Behind" is controversial because it pointed out something everyone knows but the people being blamed didn't actually like hearing - education in the US was not all that great at the…

Among the five Nobel Laureates who have endorsed the book, "Thank God for Evolution," Craig Mello, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Mello, offers, "The science vs. religion…

A golden coil smaller in diameter than a human hair and a diamond pin embossed with gold may represent the future of high frequency electronics. Carol L. Kory, who specializes in complex…

Ethylene (C2H4) is a gaseous hormone produced naturally in plants and by man in combustion (1). When plants encounter ethylene they soften and ripen (fruit) or wilt and fade (flowers.) We all like…

A review of scientific data in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) finds that, in some cases, stun guns may stimulate the heart in experimental models. This evidence is contrary to current…

In a science classroom at a middle school I saw a poster about “the scientific method.” There were seven steps; one was “analyze your data.” According to the poster, you use the data you’ve collected…

The Earth's atmosphere is a gigantic prism that disperses sunlight. In the most ideal atmospheric conditions, such as those found regularly above Cerro Paranal, this will lead to the appearance of so…

If you've ever used an internet translation tool, you know how immature the translation technology is compared to other sorts of computer programs. Punctuation errors, misplaced words and…

I missed this interesting discussion at Larry Moran's Sandwalk: Are biochemistry programs too hard compared to other biology majors? Larry says his biochemistry program is losing students to other…

Science writer Carl Zimmer is building anticipation for his new book, Microcosm: E. coli and The New Science of Life. His latest hype-building piece is up at Wired. It's short and worth checking out…

It's not easy understanding all the nuances of particular disciplines in science even if you are in the field - science has gotten pretty precise. I have a good grasp of Maxwell's equations, for…

Always on the lookout for new ways to motivate graduate students to get their work finished, I took note of this handy item while flipping through the Fisher catalogue in search of a flammables…

Ethical debates over cloning are confusing enough, but even without the ethics issues the terminology of cloning is extremely confusing. Scientists bat around the word in many different contexts,…