How often do meteorites and objects from space hit us?  Actually, pretty often, we just don't have cameras and detection equipment everywhere, so when a sonic boom-inducing event like in the Ural mountains of Russia occurs, it is big news.  It blew out windows and injured hundreds.The scariest part; the Chelyabinsk region a thousand miles east of Moscow is home to not just factories and homes, but also a nuclear power plant and the Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment center.

Despite passing every scientific review, the Keystone XL project, which would bring lots of new  jobs and lower energy costs for Americans, became a lightning rod for American activists when it looked like President Obama might side with unions over greens and approve it.What was never a consideration was the scientists who have to be baffled that the president stood up in his State of the Union address and invoked science and reason numerous times, but has been engaged in efforts to undercut it every time it deviates from his world view.

The billions of dollars that the food industry won't have to spend on pointless GMO labels isn't simply money saved for consumers- we are actually lucky they aren't spending billions on top of the billions they will already have to spend on pointless labels that could be required by the Obama administration under its health care reform provisions. Because it will all be passed through to us so someone, somewhere can get something for free.

French businesses are not thrilled that their safe nuclear power, which they took decades to create and which was highlighted as the wave of the future in 1990s Kyoto CO2 emission treaties, has been hijacked by anti-science activists.Because their already expensive cost of doing business is now even higher.French companies’ tenuous competitive advantage due to energy cost has been whittled down by American natural gas improvements and German subsidies to offset higher electricity costs due to their solar power experimentation. 

The farewell letter written by departing Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will be remembered as one of the most thorough, detailed and outspoken ever crafted by a departing Cabinet member.It's his actual tenure running America's energy policy we wish we could forget. In his parting 3,781- word term paper he takes credit for the Bush administration's ARPA-E (that's the energy version of DARPA) yet doesn't mention the things he actually should take credit for, like steering American energy research into an expensive morass of feel-good fallacies and solar activism while refusing to stand up to his boss on anti-science policies designed to make energy across the board more expensive for poor people.

Using DNA passed down from a 17th-generation descendant of Richard III's sister, researchers have been able to confirm that the bones found under a Leicester parking lot are the former king.The DNA they were looking for was found in Joy Ibsen of Canada, died several years ago and her son, Michael, who now works in London, provided a sample.  Good thing too. The DNA they needed is only handed down through the female line and her only daughter has no children so the line was about to stop.

When Congress passed the newest farm bill extension at the beginning of this month, they cut $22 million being paid under the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program, along with several other subsidies to organic farmers. That means you and I and everyone else no longer have to pay so organic farmers can put that sticker on organic food.  After all, if traditional food was going to have to suck it up and put GMO warning labels on food, and the $29 billion organic industry thought that was a great idea, it doesn't seem right taxpayers should have to bankroll stickers for anyone else.

When I wrote Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People, it made a lot of people mad.  Not actual celiac patients, they knew where I was coming from, but rather the fad diet contingent who put up websites linking to articles claiming wheat causes vaccines and what-not.When even sites like The Daily Beast, who are almost Dr. Oz-ish in their willingness to embrace pseudoscience, note that the gluten-free thing is not helping a whole lot of people and harming some, this particular fad diet movement is officially dead.

Making a coffee beer has always been tough but not for obvious reasons - it isn't like people don't enjoy foam, cappuccino has been around forever. Lipids in coffee just don't seem to make a lot of sense, though.But without coffee and beer, science would grind to a halt - a $140 billion a year industry would be paralyzed - so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to put them together.Loowit Brewing and Torque Coffee Roasters in Vancouver have been working on just such a coffee stout that they introduced at the "Drink This!" artisan beverage festival. Torque co-owner Ryan Palmer also created a coffee pale ale beer with Mt. Tabor Brewing's owner Eric Surface. A stout is a natural fit to get going on coffee-beer hybrid.

UC Davis post-doc David Snyder, who was injured in an explosion at his campus apartment last week, was charged yesterday with 10 counts of possessing firearms and explosives.Snyder was specifically charged with felony violations of California Penal Code 18715, possession of an explosive, and California Penal Code 18720, possession of any substance, material, or any combination of substances or materials, with the intent to make any destructive device or any explosive. He was also charged with two counts of possessing a firearm on campus, Penal Code 626.9(i).