James D. Bjorken, also known as "BJ" by colleagues and physicists around the world, has been awarded the prestigious 2015 Wolf prize in Physics together with cosmologist Robert Kirshner. Bjorken…

Today I collected in my mailbox the hefty "Review of Particle Physics", the publication of the Particle Data Group which contains a summary of everything we know about subatomic particles. For the…

In this post, I will provide the ultra orthodox fringe view (translation: just my view) on the problems that face physics when doing classical problems with gravity.  The difference between…

One saved the U.S. space program, another invented a better treatment for leprosy and a third spawned an industry in the American Midwest - but you have probably never heard of these female "legends…

Mars One, a private effort to do what governments seem incapable of achieving, has believers excited about colonizing another planet, but the long-term consequences of living in low or no-gravity…

Public participation will have to be at the heart of big data projects in health care and biomedical research and a new report calls for greater transparency about how people's data are used. The…

A new study has linked a previously unexplored biological process to the failure of embryos to attach to the uterine wall during in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF only has around a 25% success rate,…

There’s no scientific definition of picky eating, but parents know it when they see it.  Sharon Donovan, a University of Illinois professor of nutrition, says that picky eaters do exhibit…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a relatively rare congenital disease which causes muscle degeneration and eventual death in teenagers.   Around 1 in 3500 newborns is affected and by approximately…

Teenagers who own smart phones spend more time online – including during the night, which may affect their sleep. A new University of Basel study on more than 300 students reports that teenagers'…

There are ways non-scientists can assess if the research underlying big claims about cancer cures stack up. Rafael Anderson Gonzales Mendoza/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA By Nial Wheate, University of Sydney…

Women – and little girls even more so – are desperate to see images and stories that don’t actively oppress them onscreen, says Olivia Murphy. Image: Nadia Mel, CC BY-SA By Olivia Murphy, University…

Preventing heart disease with Vitamin BS By David Seres, M.D. and Josh Bloom, Ph.D.  It is not surprising when headlines—particularly those related to health issues—inaccurately convey…

The warm ocean temperatures that brought an endangered green sea turtle to San Francisco in September have triggered a population explosion of bright pink, inch-long sea slugs in tide pools along…

Understanding how baleen whales hear has posed a great mystery to marine mammal researchers. New research by San Diego State University biologist Ted W. Cranford and University of California, San…

The third chapter in the ongoing saga of the "first direct image of gravitational waves through the primordial sky" has been written. The first chapter was in March of last year when the BICEP2 team…

A new study indicates that sexual behavior among female university students in Sweden has changed during the last 25 years, with behavior now appearing more risky than before. The surveys were taken…

Bowhunting has made a big comeback in the 21st century. Suddenly women love it - and their inclination to shoot something up close and personal without getting their hands messy is reason enough not…

Though the anti-vaccine hotbeds in the United States are strongest in regions that are overwhelmingly Democratic, a new paper says it may not be Democrats that are most anti-vaccine. Why would they…

A secondary analysis of a mild gestational diabetes mellitus treatment trial long-term follow-up study looked at the relationship between maternal oral glucose tolerance testing and childhood body…